Local Elections : Key’s Bid to Unlock Votes to Oust McCarty in District 7 Seems Doomed

To mention unassuming, mild-mannered San Diego City Councilwoman Judy McCarty and “The Godfather” in the same breath seems thoroughly incongruous, yet McCarty’s campaign consultant does just that to summarize her 7th District reelection campaign.

“Whenever I think of Judy, I’m reminded of a line from ‘The Godfather,’ ” said John Kern, who was McCarty’s City Hall administrative assistant before leaving to start his own consulting firm. “The line is, ‘Your friends should always underestimate your virtues, and your enemies should always overestimate your faults.’ That’s the way it is with Judy.

“Because for someone who’s been taken lightly, she’s put together a pretty impressive record. And, for someone who was considered a pretty easy target this year, she drove nine people out of this race before it even began.”

Indeed, early this year, McCarty’s critics approached many community leaders throughout the 7th District, trying to find a strong challenger to block her bid for a second four-year term. Not only did each person approached decline to run, but some reported the entreaty to McCarty, who could only chuckle that her opponents “don’t even know who my friends are.”

11th-Hour Opposition

Until shortly before the filing deadline, it appeared that McCarty might be the first council incumbent in nearly two decades to run unopposed. Although retired firefighter Kenneth Key entered the race at the eleventh hour, he is regarded as little more than token opposition for McCarty in the sprawling northern district, which includes the College area near San Diego State University, Allied Gardens, Grantville, Del Cerro, San Carlos, Tierrasanta and the Lake Murray area.

With only two candidates on the ballot, the 7th District contest is the only one of the four council races that appears guaranteed to conclude in next Tuesday’s primary. Under the new district-only election system, a candidate can avoid a November runoff by getting more than 50% of the primary vote.

Viewing complacency and overconfidence as their major obstacles, McCarty’s backers have waged an aggressive, well-funded campaign designed to produce the landslide victory widely expected of her. Though Key has raised less than $6,000, McCarty will end up spending about $120,000--a 20-1 disparity that Kern characterizes not so much as political overkill as necessity to meet the high expectations of an easy win.

Battling Perceptions

If the perception of the campaign as a race more in theory than in fact concerns McCarty, it is even more troublesome for Key, a 52-year-old Allied Gardens Democrat in his first race for public office. With most voters paying only cursory attention to an election predicted to draw less than a 20% turnout, Key’s task of persuading them to share his view of McCarty as ineffectual, overly cozy with developers and preoccupied with her own community of San Carlos, to the detriment of the rest of the district, is all the more difficult.

“Mrs. McCarty has done nothing to improve major problems such as drugs and traffic, and, on other issues, her actions have actually made things worse,” Key said. “Like some others on the council, she’s very beholden to developers, and her votes show that.”

To her supporters, however, McCarty, a former aide to then-Assemblyman, now state Sen. Larry Stirling (R-San Diego), is the archetypical citizen-politician. Professing disinterest in higher office, the low-keyed, soft-spoken McCarty describes herself as “just plain Judy from San Carlos.”

Having once described City Hall as being “like the PTA--only the people are not as friendly,” the 49-year-old McCarty approaches her job with a common-sense simplicity that has led critics to accuse her of lacking a deep understanding of complex issues.

As highlights of her first term, the Republican councilwoman points to her role in securing funding for the completion of California 52 and three major connector roads or highways, the purchase of Rancho Mission Canyon and the addition of 680 acres to Mission Trails Regional Park, and pushing for creation of the Metropolitan Sewage Task Force, which is reviewing city plans to build a secondary-sewage treatment plant.

Though she usually sides with the council’s pro-growth majority, McCarty also co-authored, along with Councilman Bob Filner, a compromise growth-management plan. Rated as the council’s third-worst member on growth issues by the Sierra Club, McCarty opposed the city’s unsuccessful effort to halt the toxic-burning Ogden plant in La Jolla and supported the proposed SANDER trash-burning project, which has been withdrawn.

However, environmentalists also applaud her strong support of recycling programs, water reclamation and plans to eliminate products that contain ozone-damaging fluorocarbons. She also led the fight to preserve landscaping on California 163 through Balboa Park, causing state transportation officials to back away from a plan to remove trees because of concerns over the state’s liability in accidents.

Detractors’ Perspective

But, from her detractors’ perspective, McCarty’s own actions have undermined the very goals she espouses. Peter Navarro, chairman of Prevent Los Angelization Now, charged that McCarty has “gutted” growth-management measures and initially “walked blindly” into a plan that would have established “a dangerous precedent” by permitting a major Tierrasanta developer to shift costs for public facilities such as roads and sewer lines to home buyers. After a community uproar, McCarty and the council reversed positions and opposed the plan.

Key has blamed McCarty for the eviction of a group of seniors from a city-owned campground at Hollins Lake in order to replace the habitat of an endangered bird displaced by the California 52 extension. McCarty, though, notes that the highway would not have been completed otherwise, adding that an improved campground will be built with state funds.

Key’s own platform includes proposals to revamp Navy ships to use as jails to help ease the county’s longstanding jail crowding, and to alleviate parking woes near SDSU by having students park at San Diego Jack Murphy Stadium and take a shuttle to campus. As a corollary to the latter proposal, Key favors expediting the timetable for extending the trolley from Old Town to the stadium.

Lacking the funds to match the half-dozen mailers sent to voters by McCarty, Key has been forced to rely on simpler tactics, such as having supporters stand along roadsides with signs urging people to “Help Unlock City Hall . . . with Key.” He also draws encouragement from his striking resemblance to country singer Kenny Rogers, describing his facial features as “one of my real attributes in this campaign.”

Barring a major upset, however, the blues may be more indicative of what lies ahead for Key on Election Day.