THE TIMES POLL : S.D. Voters Quickly Warm to District-Only Elections

After their first taste of district-only campaigns, San Diegans have warmed considerably to the idea and now approve of the new method of electing San Diego City Council members by a more than 4-to-1 margin, a Times poll shows.

District elections, approved by a razor-thin 51% majority last year, apparently won over more converts in September’s council primaries, as reflected in the poll’s finding that registered voters approve of the electoral change by a 61%-14% margin.

Among those who favor district elections, more than three-fourths believe that district races give neighborhoods a bigger voice in electing council members and, thereby, enhance individual communities’ clout at City Hall. The results of last month’s primaries in four council districts reinforced that perception, as one incumbent was defeated and two others were forced into tough November runoffs--the bleakest performance by sitting council members in more than a decade.

On other issues, the poll showed that:

- Mayor Maureen O’Connor’s popularity has dropped to below 50%, though she continues to draw positive job-performance reviews by a more than 3-to-2 margin.

- Nearly half of San Diegans say that they do not know enough about their own council member to judge his or her performance. More than three-fourths of the city’s registered voters also are not familiar with a plan to expand the size of the council, but, when the proposal is explained to them, 47% support the idea.

- Support for growth-control measures remains strong, with 59% of the public favoring limits on development even if those restrictions harm business or endanger jobs.

- San Diegans, by a convincing 59%-26% margin, favor the city-sponsored Soviet arts festival that began last weekend.

The Times poll was based on telephone interviews conducted Sunday with 701 people throughout the city of San Diego. The poll’s margin of sampling error is plus or minus 5 percentage points.

With the city’s first district-only council runoff elections in nearly 60 years only two weeks away, the poll found that public support for district races has increased dramatically since last November’s Proposition E campaign. In last fall’s race--the fifth time in 19 years in which San Diegans were asked whether council members should be elected strictly within individual districts--a narrow majority of voters overturned the city’s former electoral system of district primaries followed by citywide runoffs between the top two vote-getters.

Less than one year later, district elections, which are being used this year in half of the council’s eight districts, drew a more favorable reaction--61% among registered voters and 57% overall, the poll showed.

Asked why they like district races, 76% of those in favor said they believe that elections confined to districts will expand neighborhoods’ role in local government--both in council elections and the formulation of city policy. Under the city’s former two-tiered election format, neighborhood activists often complained that their wishes were frequently overwhelmed by citywide interests or by political pressure applied by groups outside their district.

Another 10% explained their support by noting that district elections make it possible for relatively unknown candidates with limited financial backing to win through grass-roots campaigns, while 8% suggested that the new election system will improve minority representation on the City Council.

Among those registered voters who oppose district elections, 58% said they fear that district races will cause council members to become preoccupied with narrow, parochial issues, to the detriment of citywide concerns. An additional 26% of the opponents were distressed by the fact that district elections have reduced individual council members’ constituencies to one-eighth of their previous citywide size, using that point to argue that future council members will be elected by too few people.

People on both sides of the district-election issue, however, doubt that the change in election methods will have a major impact in the way that city government is run. Sixty-one percent of those polled said they believe that district elections will produce little or “hardly any” change, compared to 22% who predicted major changes at City Hall.

Another potential major structural change in city government--the proposal to increase the number of council seats from eight to 10--apparently has attracted little public interest to date, the poll showed.

More than three-fourths of the public--76% among registered voters and 81% overall--say they have not heard or read much about the plan, which will appear on the June, 1990, ballot under the terms of the city’s recent settlement of a voting-rights lawsuit. However, when details of the council-expansion plan were explained to them, registered voters approved of the proposal by a 47%-33% margin, with 20% undecided.

The poll provided mixed political signals for Mayor O’Connor, showing that her personal popularity has declined even as public support for the Soviet arts festival--a controversial event that she has championed for the past two years--increases.

By 45% to 27%, registered San Diegans approve of O’Connor’s performance, with more than one-fourth of the public undecided--an unusually high percentage of undecideds for someone who has been in public office as long as O’Connor. That job-approval index, though still favorable, represents a significant drop from the 69% positive rating that O’Connor received in a May, 1988, Times poll, as well as from her 60% reelection margin the following month.

Part of the explanation for O’Connor’s slippage in the polls may be that she simply is experiencing the midterm decline in popularity common among elected officials. Now nearly 3 1/2 years into her mayoralty--which began with her victory in a special 1986 election necessitated by Roger Hedgecock’s forced resignation following his felony conviction--O’Connor has been in office long enough to attract significant opposition through her handling of myriad issues.

“For a mayor who’s had to tackle some very tough issues--growth-management, the assault-weapon ban, sewage, crime--those numbers still are very gratifying,” said Paul Downey, O’Connor’s press secretary. “If you were to divide the undecided, and people had to vote today, it looks like we’d probably come out just about where we were last year with about 60%.”

Should the Soviet arts festival prove an artistic and public-relations success, the three-week event’s popularity conceivably could produce an upswing in O’Connor’s own approval rating, because she has invested two years of effort and a considerable amount of her prestige--as well as $3 million in city funds--in the festival.

Conducted on the same day as Super Powers Sunday--the kickoff to the festival that drew more than 50,000 people to Balboa Park--the poll found that San Diegans approve of the event by a more than 2-to-1 margin, 59% to 26%. When the same question was asked in a May, 1988, Times poll, public opinion among registered voters was more evenly split, with 40% in favor, 35% opposed and 25% undecided.

“Strong public support like that is going to make some of the people who have been critical of the festival reassess their position--or at least realize they’re in the minority,” Downey said. “It proves what we’ve said all along--that people are enthusiastic over bringing top world talent to San Diego and do favor this kind of cultural exchange.”

While O’Connor can be heartened by at least some of the poll’s findings, the results were gloomier for the San Diego City Council. In short, the poll found that most San Diegans do not know much about the council, and dislike what they do know about it.

If district elections are designed in part to establish a closer rapport between elected officials and their constituencies, the poll shows that there clearly is a need for improvement in that area at City Hall. Forty-three percent of the registered voters polled--and 48% overall--said that they are not familiar enough with the council member who represents them to assess his or her performance. Among those with an opinion, attitudes were divided, with 28% expressing satisfaction and 23% disapproving of their council member.

Collectively, the council fares little better than its individual members. Asked to judge the council’s handling of growth issues--long one of the most volatile topics in San Diego politics--registered voters expressed disapproval by a 39%-33% margin.

Although voters rejected two city growth-control measures last November, the poll found strong majority support for restrictions on development--sentiment that environmentalists hope to tap into next year when they plan to put another ballot proposition before voters.

By a more than 2-to-1 margin--64% to 27%--registered voters say they favor limiting growth, even at the risk of damaging business or eliminating jobs. Moreover, the poll found that, for many people, growth is a pivotal issue in determining how they vote, with slow-growth advocates, by a 45%-37% margin, saying that they would vote against a pro-growth candidate, even if they agreed with that candidate on most other issues.

Prevent Los Angelization Now, the successor organization to Citizens for Limited Growth--the group that waged last year’s unsuccessful growth limitation battles--next month will begin gathering signatures for a 1990 ballot initiative that would link the issuance of building permits to traffic congestion and the availability of public needs such as drinking water and a sewage treatment system.

If PLAN succeeds in getting that measure on the ballot, it will have the benefit of trying to make its case to an initially receptive public, the poll showed. Indeed, 61% of the registered voters surveyed said that they would be inclined to support another slow-growth measure, while only 27% expressed disapproval.

That finding, however, may be illustrative more of one of the peculiarities of San Diego politics than it is indicative of any such proposal’s prospects for approval at the polls--in particular, of environmentalists’ inability to transform generally solid public backing into tangible electoral success.

In recent years, numerous public opinion surveys have consistently detected strong public support for growth controls. However, just as consistently, the building industry, through effective high-budget campaigns, has managed to defeat most slow-growth ballot measures. Last November, for example, developers not only defeated the two city measures, but also turned back two similar propositions on the countywide ballot.

Growth-control sentiment is considerably stronger among women than men, the poll showed. While women favored growth limitations by an overwhelming 70%-19% margin, the men polled narrowly supported such restrictions, 48% to 43%. High-income persons also were more favorable toward growth limits than lower-income individuals, whose attitude perhaps reflected a desire to see more jobs created by economic growth.

Racial and ethnic distinctions also were evident in the poll respondents’ positions on growth issues. While whites were strongly in favor of slowing down growth, 65% to 25%, minorities preferred economic development by a 49%-39% margin.

OPINIONS OF REGISTERED VOTERS Do you approve or disapprove of district-only elections for the San Diego City Council? Favor: 61% Oppose: 14% Don’t know: 25% Do you support a proposal to expand the City Council from eight to 10 seats? Yes: 47% No: 33% Don’t know: 20% Are you in favor of slowing down growth--even if that may hurt business and result in the loss of some jobs in San Diego? Yes: 64% No: 27% Don’t know: 9% Source: Los Angeles Times Poll