Mayor Bruised as New Council Enters Swinging

San Diego’s newest City Council members opened their terms with an afternoon of bitter political infighting Monday, rebuking Mayor Maureen O’Connor and rewarding increasingly assertive environmentalists who had demanded Councilman Bruce Henderson’s removal as head of the council committee overseeing parks.

First-day Councilwoman Linda Bernhardt, acting just hours after her inauguration, clinched Henderson’s removal as chairman of the council’s Public Facilities and Recreation Committee by switching her allegiance from Henderson and providing the crucial fifth vote to install Councilman Bob Filner in the post.

The divisive back-room warring over the little-known but coveted committee chairmanships gave Filner an important victory over both Henderson and O’Connor, and ratified--at least on a single turf issue--the value of Filner’s campaign work for incoming council members Bernhardt and John Hartley and Councilwoman Abbe Wolfsheimer. The trio formed a five-vote majority with Filner and Councilman Wes Pratt.

For the second year in a row, O’Connor was forced to accept at least one chairman whom she did not support. Last year, the council’s moderate-to-conservative wing installed Henderson over Filner, then the mayor’s choice, in the same committee chairmanship.

But the city’s new district election system led to the defeat this year of Ed Struiksma and Gloria McColl, bringing Bernhardt and Hartley to the council and shifting its overall makeup to the left.

Monday “marks the official beginning of new kind leadership in San Diego, a new kind of political leadership,” Hartley said. “Because you’re not just seeing four new council members being sworn in, you’re seeing the first City Council members ever elected by district elections.”

But whether Monday’s coalition will dictate council policy remains open to question. Alliances on the nonpartisan council tend to form and crumble with each issue.

The vote also injected a quick dose of political reality on a day that began with expressions of unity at morning inauguration ceremonies for the 57th City Council. Newcomers Bernhardt and Hartley were sworn in with reelected councilwomen Wolfsheimer and Judy McCarty.

“I view my role on the City Council as one member of a team of nine,” Bernhardt had declared during ceremonies at Civic Theater. “I will always have an open door to consider, discuss and debate the ideas and positions of my colleagues.”

But O’Connor, who did not hide her anger at Bernhardt, Pratt or Filner, said after the vote that “the veneer looks tranquil. The underbelly is very ugly.”

Enmity produced by the vote was “very divisive and it’s not going to be in the public’s best interest,” the mayor said.

An unusual alliance of the city’s most influential environmental organizations took some of the credit for Bernhardt’s switch. Twenty-three groups were represented in a memo delivered to O’Connor on Friday that called for Filner to replace Henderson in the chairmanship.

Environmentalists, many of whom supported Bernhardt in her race against Struiksma, have been lobbying Bernhardt since Friday, and she credited the pressure with helping her change her mind on Henderson. She also attributed the decision to discussions with Pratt, Filner, Hartley and Wolfsheimer and an examination of Henderson’s environmental voting record.

In a separate victory for growth-management advocates, O’Connor agreed Monday to hold a council discussion by Jan. 15 on two growth-control ballot initiatives now being circulated for placement on the June, 1990, ballot. The council could, theoretically, adopt portions of either one or both, possibly precluding a showdown at the polls.

Bernhardt’s defection gave Filner, ranked the council’s third-best environmentalist by the Sierra Club, victory over Henderson, whom the influential environmental group has labeled a member of the council’s “bulldozer brigade.”

Henderson stepped aside to avoid debate on the new council’s first day, earning a “salute” from O’Connor for “true statesmanlike behavior.”

“I’ve done some informal canvassing, and I’m not sure I have the votes to be elected to that chair,” Henderson said before the council’s 9-0 vote on committee chairmanships.

But O’Connor was less circumspect. “In politics, the only thing you have going for you is your word,” O’Connor said. “I think, at this point, it’s iffy at best as it relates to (Bernhardt’s) word.”

Less than two weeks ago, Bernhardt pledged to support O’Connor’s slate, which put Bernhardt in charge of the Housing Commission, continued Councilman Ron Roberts as chairman of the Transportation and Land Use Committee, and installed Councilman Wes Pratt as head of the Public Services and Safety Committee. As mayor, O’Connor leads the council’s Rules Committee.

O’Connor also criticized Pratt for supporting Filner, who has gone through two years of personality clashes with the mayor. The mayor contended that Pratt, whose status as a swing vote on the council has expanded, had also promised to support O’Connor’s slate. Pratt had told reporters, however, that O’Connor’s failure to nominate Filner to a chairmanship was unfair.

“I’m just disappointed,” O’Connor said. “I spent a lot of time with Wes Pratt, and I’m very supportive in his district.”

Just before the council meeting, Pratt and the mayor engaged in a heated closed-door discussion of Pratt’s voting plans, from which the mayor emerged in tears, according to two City Hall sources. Paul Downey, the mayor’s spokesman, said he was not aware that the mayor had been crying after the session.

Bernhardt, noting that all but one of O’Connor’s choices had been ratified by the new council, said that the mayor should not consider the vote a loss.

“I did go with the mayor,” Bernhardt said. “She won. She is the winner in this situation, definitely.”