Which Police Board? Absentee-Ballot Count Today Holds Answer

With a thin, 1,000-vote difference between them, the supporters of Propositions F and G will square off again this morning at the county registrar of voters office to witness the manual count of absentee ballots and learn, finally, which citizens’ review board will stand guard over the San Diego Police Department.

Proposition F, which would create a review board with subpoena powers and private hearings, received 167,751 votes.

Its rival, Proposition G, which would create a board similar to the current review panel, received 168,779 votes.

Both received majorities and the difference between them is a mere 1,028 votes.

Absentee Ballots

Left to be counted today are 40,000 to 45,000 absentee ballots, --at least half of them turned in by city residents. The count will begin at 10 a.m.

“Our absentee ballot count will probably easily decide it,” said Registrar of Voters Conny McCormack.

Assistant City Atty. Curtis Fitzpatrick said that, according to the state constitution, when two like ballot measures both win a majority, the one with the most votes wins. Attorneys in his office, who drafted Propositions F and G, concur.

“I can’t see how we can read it any other way,” he said. “That’s our thinking on it and what we will argue.”

But supporters of Proposition G, which would establish a review board appointed by the city manager, contend that the opening line of their ballot measure would enable Proposition G to take precedence, even if Proposition F gets more votes. The section states that, “notwithstanding any other provision of this Charter, the city manager shall have exclusive authority to create” the review panel.

“I can see why Mr. Fitzpatrick may say what he did,” said Chris Ashcraft, attorney for the Police Officers Assn. “But I’ve talked to other deputy city attorneys who have read the ballot language and they’ve seen that exclusivity clause in there and say that may be a problem.”

The trend among absentee ballots suggests that Proposition G may hold its lead.

With 152,000 earlier absentee ballots counted, Proposition G was ahead with 54.6% of the vote, although Proposition F was losing by less than 1%.

The POA backed Proposition G, an alternative to the Charter Review Commission’s measure.

Proposition G backers argued that Proposition F could cost taxpayers as much as $1 million a year. And they contended it would damage police morale by trying to force officers to answer subpoenas and be held responsible to a citizens’ panel with little knowledge of police matters.

Last-Minute Thinking

Ashcraft said that, while working on telephone campaigns during the last two weeks, he found that many voters, as the campaign wore on, began to see problems with Proposition F.

“It appeared that, within the last few weeks of the election, people kind of got an education,” he said. “The voters became well educated about the differences in the two propositions.”

Councilman Wes Pratt, a strong Proposition F supporter, conceded Wednesday that his opponents had the edge with Tuesday’s vote count and the trend in earlier absentee ballots.

But he pledged that, if the Proposition G board is created, the City Council will have to take up a “citizens role” to make sure the new board seriously stands up against police misconduct.

Pratt said the council will have to lean on the city manager to make sure the new board aggressively monitors the conduct of errant police officers. He said the existing board, which is similar to the one that will be created by Proposition G, has not gained the public’s trust in its year of existence.

“People I’ve talked to in this campaign have been supportive,” he said. “People said they thought police were sometimes disrespectful and at times abused their authority. They just generally had problems with the way the police dealt with them.

“We’ve had a lot of excessive-force complaints this year,” Pratt said. “So there definitely is a perception out there that we need some kind of check and balance. The public as a whole feels that something has to be done.”