Petitions Filed to Force Vote on Miramar Lake Project

Ending a monthlong campaign, a citizens group that is attempting to block development on the hills north of Lake Miramar filed petitions with the San Diego city clerk’s office Tuesday to force a citywide referendum on the 3,360-home project authorized by the San Diego City Council.

Leaders of the Save Miramar Lake Committee said they had gathered 45,000 signatures on their petitions, enough, they believe, to qualify for the ballot.

An attorney for the Miramar Ranch North project’s developer, BCE Development, responded Tuesday afternoon by filing a lawsuit in Superior Court claiming that the petitions are invalid.

In a suit against City Clerk Charles Abdelnour and City Manager John Lockwood, attorney James Milch claimed that the Save Miramar Lake Committee had violated city law by failing to attach to each petition the entire “development agreement” under which the 1,200-acre project would be built.

Will Seek Court Order

Milch said he will seek a temporary restraining order barring Abdelnour from determining whether the petition drive succeeded in collecting the 25,593 valid signatures needed to place the development agreement on the ballot.

In a separate counter-move, an opposing community group presented the City Council with petitions that its chairman said contain the signatures of 43,000 people who support the development contract between the city and BCE, primarily because the agreement calls for the developer to build a road, a library, two parks and fire station before the first new home is occupied.

Those petitions, gathered by the Committee to Protect Your Community, have no legal effect on the referendum.

The flurry of action ended the first phase of a bitter intra-community dispute that has raged in the Scripps Ranch area since the council gave final approval to the development agreement Jan. 9.

Led by an impromptu organization of about 200 volunteers who gathered the signatures in less than 30 days, the Save Miramar Lake Committee effort is being watched closely, and in some cases abetted by, a handful of the city’s slow-growth advocates and potential opponents of incumbent District 5 Councilman Ed Struiksma. Struiksma, who faces re-election this fall is a strong backer of the project.

The campaign prompted BCE and some other interested developers to spend more than $100,000 to block the petition-gathering effort, said Bob Dingeman, chairman of the Committee to Protect Your Community. In a campaign financed largely by BCE, at least two letters in support of the agreement were sent to all 5,216 registered voters in Scripps Ranch in recent weeks, and tens of thousands of phone calls were made to voters city-wide.

Call for Withdrawal

Dingeman’s group also published newspaper ads in the San Diego Union and Tribune this weekend, urging signers to withdraw their names from the Save Miramar Lake Committee’s petitions by sending Abdelnour a coupon contained in the advertisement.

The newspaper campaign netted just 140 responses, Abdelnour said in a memo to the council Tuesday. Under city law, no more responses can be accepted now that the Save Miramar Lake Committee has filed the petitions.

The direct mail and telephone campaign produced 2,877 letters of support for the agreement from voters city-wide, Dingeman said. He gave those to the council Tuesday, along with his petitions in support of Miramar Ranch North.

J. Gary Underwood, co-chairman of the Save Miramar Lake Committee, said he is “elated” that his group collected the 45,000 signatures within the 30 days allowed by city law, noting that nearly half of them were collected by volunteers. The rest were gathered by a private firm hired by the committee.

“The opposition did a lot of tricks, and they used a lot of money,” Underwood said. “It didn’t make any difference. People make the difference.”

Claiming that his organization spent just $15,000 to $20,000 to collect the same number of signatures as his opponents, Underwood said: “That should tell the City Council and the mayor that this is something people feel very strongly about.”

Although the referendum calls for rescinding the entire development agreement, Underwood’s group actually opposes just 658 homes, an industrial park and a road that BCE plans to build on the hills that slope down to Lake Miramar. Underwood said his committee would support construction of all 3,360 homes, as long as they are built on the northern side of the hills.

Expensive Campaign

If the referendum qualifies, the City Council has the option of moving to rescind the development agreement instead of placing it on the ballot. Underwood called for negotiations to accomplish that without an expensive campaign.

“I would start negotiations soon on a new development agreement without having to go to a referendum,” he said. “But, if they want to take to the ballot, that’s fine with us too.”

The dispute now appears headed for a courtroom, where a Superior Court judge will be asked to determine whether the Save Miramar Lake Committee conducted its campaign legally.

Assistant City Atty. Ron Johnson, whose office would defend the city if it decides to fight BCE’s lawsuit, said the city’s lawyers are still researching Milch’s claims.

But he added that, “In looking at the position enunciated by Mr. Milch, we don’t believe he’s correct.”

Underwood, who received assurances from Abdelnour’s office that his petitions were legal, called the lawsuit “totally frivolous.”

“This is the type of thing that people with big money always bring up, and they always lose,” he said.