Local Elections : Only 5th Council District Draws a Crowd as Four Seek to Oust Struiksma

When San Diego voters narrowly approved district-only City Council elections last fall, there were predictions that the switch might encourage record numbers of candidates to enter this year’s campaign.

That proved not to be the case, in large measure because all four incumbents whose seats are at stake in the Sept. 19 primary decided to seek reelection. Although the advent of district elections has diluted some advantages of incumbency, the name-recognition and fund-raising edges enjoyed by sitting council members remain formidable enough to give pause to anyone contemplating challenging them.

Only one district--the 5th, where Councilman Ed Struiksma is seeking a third four-year term--features a larger-than-usual field of five candidates. From the perspective of the four challengers, that distinction says as much or more about Struiksma’s performance over the past eight years than it does about the political impact of district elections.

‘Tells You Something’

“The fact that more people are running against him than any other incumbent tells you something,” said former San Diego City Councilman Floyd Morrow, who is seeking to regain the 5th District seat he held from 1965 to 1977.

“Within the district, the level of dissatisfaction with Struiksma’s record is intense,” added candidate Linda Bernhardt, a land-use consultant and former aide to San Diego City Councilwoman Abbe Wolfsheimer. “To a certain extent, the number of candidates reflects that.”

Struiksma, though, dismisses attempts to attach significance to the fact that he drew twice as many opponents as any of the three other council members running for reelection, jokingly describing himself as “just lucky.”

For statistical--if not political--reasons, however, even Struiksma concedes that, with five names on the ballot, no candidate is likely to receive the 50%-plus primary victory needed to avoid a November runoff between the top two vote-getters in the district. Bordered on the south by Mission Valley, the district extends from Linda Vista north to Mira Mesa, passing through Kearny Mesa and Serra Mesa as it reaches east to Scripps Ranch.

Focused on Struiksma

With Struiksma generally conceded a spot in the runoff, the central political question posed by the primary appears to be which challenger will survive to face the Republican councilman this fall in the district, in which the GOP holds a 47%-38% registration edge. Though that means that Morrow, Bernhardt and the two other challengers--lawyer Mike Eckmann and marketing consultant Bob Switzer--are perhaps competing more with one another than with Struiksma, the four have, for tactical reasons, unrelentingly kept their attacks focused on Struiksma.

“I think we all realize that, the minute we start fighting among ourselves, the only one who benefits is Ed,” Bernhardt said. “Ed is the target.”

If Struiksma is the target, then ground zero is his consistently pro-development voting record, which his four opponents have ceaselessly hammered away at in an effort to conjure up the “Bulldozer Ed” pejorative pinned on him in past campaigns.

A mailer prepared by the Dump Ed Committee, an independent group that has been waging an anyone-but-Struiksma campaign, features a drawing of Struiksma driving a bulldozer on the cover. Bernhardt, who has been endorsed by the Sierra Club, frequently cites that group’s description of Struiksma as the council’s “most dangerous” member, while Switzer, echoing a one-liner used by others, says simply: “Struiksma never met a development he didn’t like.”

Balance Claimed

Although the Sierra Club recently rated him the most anti-environmental member of the City Council, Struiksma seeks in his standard stump speech to portray his voting record as one that reflects a “common sense, balanced approach” to growth questions--an assertion that occasionally prompts barely muffled chuckles among campaign audiences.

“Most people realize it’s impractical to think of stopping all growth,” said the 42-year-old Struiksma, who was a police officer for nine years before he was elected to the council in 1981. “The challenge is to accommodate that growth while also enhancing the quality of life both for new residents and for those already living here. And the way you help do that is by getting the parks and roads and schools that we need in our neighborhoods. That’s the approach I’ve tried to take.”

Although he can point to endorsements from an impressive list of community leaders, Struiksma has also long been recognized as a charter member of the council’s so-called “Gang of Five,” the generally pro-development majority that dominates the council on most major issues.

Unable to deny his votes in support of many developments, Struiksma, hoping to soften his image on the politically volatile issue, argues that he often has been able to win concessions from developers to limit projects. In addition, he stresses that he has obtained nearly $52 million for his district worth of improvements such as parks and streets from builders.

His opponents, however, contend that any serious questions about where Struiksma’s loyalties lie on growth management are swept aside by a review of his campaign finance reports. Indeed, a sizable majority of the nearly $250,000 that he has raised--nearly six times more than his four opponents’ cumulative total--has come from development-related contributors.

Of the developments Struiksma has supported, arguably the most significant in its potential impact on his reelection campaign is the controversial Miramar Ranch North project. Earlier this year, a 400-member community group calling itself the Save Miramar Lake Committee launched a petition drive that forced the council to cancel a development agreement permitting 3,300 homes to be built on the lake’s north side.

Seized on Issue

In defense of the project, Struiksma stresses that developers will provide more than $48 million in public facilities. But his opponents--in particular, Bernhardt--have seized on the issue as an illustration of what they see as Struiksma’s environmental insensitivity.

Emphasizing her philosophical differences with Struiksma, Bernhardt has refused to accept contributions from large-scale developers and, to dramatize the point, burned a candidate questionnaire from the Building Industry Assn. in front of City Hall. Bernhardt, however, also has been burned on that issue by Struiksma’s campaign consultants, the local firm of Johnston & Lewis, who have accused her of hypocrisy, saying that her political posture contradicts her professional practices.

In a hard-hitting mailer headlined, “You can’t have it both ways, Linda,” the consultants wrote: “Businesswoman Linda Bernhardt admits that she works for and is paid by real estate developers. But candidate Linda Bernhardt . . . says she won’t take contributions from developers. Which Linda Bernhardt is it who’s on the ballot? And more importantly, which one do we believe?”

Compiled List

In keeping with his campaign slogan of “Getting Things Done,” Struiksma’s office has compiled a list of nearly 100 individual accomplishments. Among them are the adoption of Mission Valley’s first community plan, his negotiation of a land swap that gave the city 44 acres of Navy property in Kearny Mesa to create a recreational complex, his role in creating a city lakes recreational program, establishment of a noise-monitoring system at Montgomery Field and his drafting of a council-enacted policy requiring developers to pay “impact” fees in older areas of the city. He also takes credit for many new parks, libraries and police and fire stations in communities throughout the district.

“Over time, I’ve learned how to work the system and the bureaucracy to deliver for my constituents,” Struiksma says. “That’s the overriding aspect of this campaign.”

Despite their recent frontal assault on Bernhardt, Struiksma’s strategists continue to regard Morrow, a 56-year-old lawyer and longtime Democratic leader, as their major opposition.

Three-Decade Career

Over a political career spanning nearly three decades, the former three-term councilman has won 12 of 20 elections, with his most recent campaigns being unsuccessful bids for mayor in 1986 and 1988--races that nevertheless boosted Morrow’s already strong name recognition in his political base in Kearny Mesa, where he has lived for more than 30 years, and Linda Vista, where he practices law.

Though he says the controversial Miramar Ranch North agreement should have been put on the ballot, Morrow has largely stayed out of the acrimonious growth debate that has highlighted the public discourse between Struiksma and Bernhardt. To the extent that he has addressed that issue, Morrow, like Eckmann, has sought to position himself as a moderate between the polar positions of Bernhardt and Struiksma.

“What distinguishes me from them is that I’m not pro- or anti-development,” said Morrow, the former chairman of the San Diego County Democratic Party. “My concern is making sure that public facilities are in place in time, that the parks and streets come on line as the houses are built. But I’m willing to recognize that there are some good developments in certain places at certain times.”

Similar Stance

Adopting a similar stance, Eckmann said: “Ed’s the developers’ voice on the council, Linda’s the environmentalist, and I’m the moderate. I’ll build houses, but not as many as Ed or as few as Linda.”

The candidate who, at the race’s outset, was given the best chance of challenging Morrow for a spot in the runoff is Bernhardt, a Republican who served three years as a legislative aide to Wolfsheimer before resigning to help manage the campaigns of two major growth-control propositions defeated by local voters last November. As of Sept. 2, however, Bernhardt had raised only about $12,000, even in a district-only campaign a rather paltry sum--one that she this week supplemented with $4,100 in personal money. Even so, she has outraised Morrow, whose $28,000 expenditure total includes $20,000 of his own money.

Moreover, like the other challengers, Bernhardt argues that “phoning, walking and talking” will prove to be more important than money in next Tuesday’s primary.

“That’s bad news for Ed, because the more people see him or hear about him, the less they like him,” said Bernhardt, who is single and lives in Scripps Ranch. “While Ed would have everyone believe he’s a born-again environmentalist, the truth is he supports development at any cost. Without Ed Struiksma, the council’s complexion would change considerably.”

Hopes for Upset

Eckmann, meanwhile, is a first-time GOP candidate from Scripps Ranch who candidly concedes that the race’s predicted turnout of less than 20% could work in his favor. Having walked to more than 18,000 homes in the 160,000-resident district, Eckmann hopes that his months of door-to-door campaigning could produce an upset in a race in which he suggests that the gap between second and fourth place may be only several percentage points.

“With nothing else on the ballot, the people who come out this time will really care about their vote,” said the 45-year-old Eckmann, a lawyer who also is a part-time county planning analyst and community college teacher. “Going door to door is more important than anything else you could do in this race.”

Throughout the campaign, Eckmann has frequently lamented that the switch to district elections has prompted candidates and voters alike to “gravitate toward narrow issues rather than the greater concerns facing the city.”

Determined to resist that trend, he typically stresses a number of citywide issues in his public remarks, promising to retain and expand Lindbergh Field as the city’s major airport, to oppose the proposed use of utility user fees or trash pickup charges to finance key city programs, and to reallocate city funds now being spent on promotional or cultural programs to basic services. Eckmann also proudly trumpets his modest $3,500 campaign budget, telling voters, “I spend my own money the way I’d spend yours.”

Lost in Landslide

Switzer, a Democrat who lost in a landslide to Struiksma four years ago, had to go to court last month to get the dubious privilege of repeating his long-shot candidacy. Although Switzer fell 17 signatures short of the 200 required on nominating petitions, a Superior Court judge ruled that he had substantially complied with the intent behind the law and ordered that his name be placed on the ballot.

Jumping aboard the challengers’ bandwagon of blaming Struiksma for “overdevelopment and deterioration of neighborhoods” within the district, the 37-year-old Switzer has proposed a building moratorium in Mira Mesa and Scripps Ranch. Most development in the district, he suggests, should be confined to Linda Vista, where he favors multiunit residential projects and “small, non-polluting” industries.

“My primary function is to help wake up people to the fact that district elections puts their fate in their own hands,” said Switzer, who seems content with his supporting character’s role in the campaign. “Win, lose or draw, if I do that, I’ll have been successful.”