Mayor Asks Abolition of Committees : City Hall: To a council member, a committee chairmanship is a coveted post. To O’Connor, council committees are inefficient and costly.

In a turbulent day of political maneuvering at San Diego City Hall, Mayor Maureen O’Connor on Wednesday reintroduced her call to abolish the City Council’s committee system but proposed a slate of 1990 committee members in case the idea is rejected again.

Calling the 16-year-old committee system costly, inefficient and divisive, O’Connor won approval from the council’s Rules Committee to place abolition of the system before the entire council Dec. 4.

O’Connor said the committees cost the city $250,000 annually, force the public into repetitive, time-consuming presentations before both a committee and the full council, and create “debilitating factionalism brought about by the competition” for chairmanships.

“I feel very strongly on this subject, especially having gone through what I went through in the past two weeks,” O’Connor said in reference to the sometimes bitter, behind-the-scenes wrangling over committee assignments.

O’Connor’s proposal a year ago to disband council’s four standing committees--Rules; Public Services and Safety, Public Facilities and Recreation, and Transportation and Land Use--died quickly, with virtually no serious discussion among council members, who covet chairmanships.

The committees, which initiate projects and review issues before sending recommendations to the full nine-member City Council for final decisions, are seen as power bases for council members eager to push their own policy agendas.

This year, however, there seems to be some support for O’Connor’s idea, particularly from incoming council members Linda Bernhardt and John Hartley, both of whom said they would be willing to vote for the concept. “I think it’s one of those ideas whose time has probably come,” Bernhardt said.

An aide to Deputy Mayor Judy McCarty said that McCarty is open to the idea.

But council members Ron Roberts, Wes Pratt, Bruce Henderson and Abbe Wolfsheimer voiced varying degrees of opposition to the idea, arguing that the committees have proven effective, and that O’Connor’s suggestion of replacing them all with a nine-member “committee of the whole” would be less efficient.

The position of Councilman Bob Filner, who did not respond to repeated requests for interviews Wednesday, is unknown.

The committee slate proposed by O’Connor provided the first glimpse of the evolving power structure on the new council, which was shaken up by the long-shot election victories of Bernhardt and Hartley over, respectively, Ed Struiksma and Gloria McColl.

For the second year in a row, Filner was not nominated for a committee chairmanship. He will continue his status as the only member of the current council never to hold such a post if O’Connor’s suggestions are ratified.

O’Connor said she offered the Housing Commission chairmanship to Filner, but when he rejected the post, she gave the position to Bernhardt.

Several council members suggested that Filner’s assignments were the result of his two-year personality clash with the mayor.

“I was going to say he’s in the doghouse, but that gives him too much credit,” said Struiksma. “It is a total ostracism.” In contrast, Bernhardt appeared to prosper, especially for a council newcomer. Besides the Housing Commission chairmanship, she is recommended for a spot on every committee except Public Facilities and Recreation; is listed as a representative to the Metropolitan Transit Development Board (Filner would be her alternate) and was suggested for the Stadium Authority.

O’Connor nominated Wolfsheimer for deputy mayor, but an aide for Wolfsheimer, who is out of town, did not know whether Wolfsheimer will accept.

O’Connor nominated Roberts to keep his post as chairman of Transportation and Land Use and suggested keeping Henderson as chairman of Public Facilities and Recreation. Pratt, who now heads the Housing Commission, would replace McColl as chairman of the Public Services and Safety Committee.