Woman, Black Named to S.D. Port District

Breaking the all-white, all-male lock on the San Diego Unified Port District, the San Diego City Council on Tuesday appointed a black investment-firm executive and a woman attorney to the wealthy and influential agency that controls state tidelands around San Diego Bay.

Clifford Graves, former chief administrative officer for San Diego County, and Lynn Schenk, the only woman ever to head the state Business, Transportation and Housing Agency, were selected on the second ballot, after they and labor leader Joseph Francis fell one vote short of the five-vote majority needed for selection in the first round of voting.

When he takes over Feb. 8, Graves will become the first black on the board since the tenure of Alois Smith ended in 1980 and only the second appointed in the agency’s 28 years of existence. Schenk will be the third woman to serve on the seven-member panel and the first since Maureen O’Connor was denied reappointment to a second term in 1985.

After the vote, Schenk said her top priorities will be the relocation of Lindbergh Field--which the Port District controls--pollution in San Diego Bay and promoting more opportunity for employment of women and minorities, including contractors. The Port District has been criticized for a poor record of hiring Latinos and blacks.

Graves said he wants to begin by examining the balance between tourist-related industries and commercial and industrial concerns under Port District control. He added the airport relocation issue and municipal demands for a share of the port’s sizable revenues as top issues.

The appointments end--for now--weeks of back-corridor jockeying for the prestigious posts and satisfy the longstanding demand of minority activists for representation on the Port District, a demand that grew louder when the panel last year refused the City Council’s request to name the city’s new bayfront convention center for the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

The appointment “sends a signal back to blacks and Hispanics, and, with the appointment of Lynn, to others, that the City Council has heard their concerns and is responding,” Graves told reporters.

“It was time for a change,” said Councilman Wes Pratt, who had nominated Graves for the post.

The choices--and Francis’ showing--also reflect the substantial shift in the council’s leanings since the defeat of Ed Struiksma and Gloria McColl in last year’s elections. Building industry lobbyist Paul Peterson and former Councilman Bill Cleator, Establishment candidates who might have expected to be leading contenders for the Port District posts if last year’s moderate to conservative bloc were still in control, were never really in the running Tuesday. Cleator did not even show up for Tuesday’s public hearing and vote.

But the council still faces two potentially divisive related issues. The council deferred a decision on which appointee will replace which outgoing port commissioner, Louis Wolfsheimer and William Rick. Wolfsheimer’s term expires Jan. 2, 1991, less than a year after either Graves or Schenk takes over his spot. Commissioner William Rick’s tenure is scheduled to end Jan. 2, 1993, giving his replacement a longer first term.

Rick and Wolfsheimer were given special permission by the council to serve third terms to complete construction of the San Diego Convention Center. Both agreed at the time of their reappointments that they would step down when the convention center was completed.

The matter was sent to the council’s Rules Committee and could come up Feb. 7, the same day that the committee is scheduled to discuss whether the council has the authority to oust W. Daniel Larsen, its third appointee to the seven- member panel. City Atty. John Witt ruled Friday that the council cannot take that action without demonstrating misconduct by Larsen, but at least three council members disagree.

The cities of Coronado, Imperial Beach, National City and Chula Vista each have one appointee on the Board of Port Commissioners.

With each council member entitled to two votes Tuesday, Graves won his spot with the support of Ron Roberts, John Hartley, Pratt, Linda Bernhardt and Bob Filner. Schenk received her five votes from council members Abbe Wolfsheimer, Roberts, Pratt, Bernhardt and Filner.

Filner cinched Graves’ appointment by dropping his first-ballot allegiance to his nominee, attorney Daniel Guevara, after Guevara received just one vote on the first round. Roberts provided Schenk’s fifth vote on the second round after casting his first ballot for his nominee, attorney John Davies, who also received only one vote on the first ballot.

Mayor Maureen O’Connor, who had said she would not participate in the vote because she believes port commissioners should be elected, was attending a U.S. Conference of Mayors meeting in Washington.

The council’s questioning of the eight nominees for the coveted posts was genteel throughout a hearing that began late Tuesday morning and continued, after the council’s two-hour lunch recess, into the mid-afternoon.

Graves, for example, was not asked about his 1985 resignation from the top county job under pressure after a major scandal over a telephone contract that led to the indictment of 13 people, and allegations of mismanagement involving his appointed department directors.

Schenk’s bitter feud with County Supervisor Susan Golding, which culminated in Schenk winning a $150,000 out-of-court settlement in 1988 of her slander lawsuit against Golding, never surfaced, either. The 1984 legal action stemmed from a campaign mailer from Golding about opponent Schenk the day before the November election in which Golding was first elected to the Board of Supervisors.

Instead, the hearing served as a summation of the major issues facing the Port District, including the Lindbergh relocation, pollution of San Diego Bay, the port’s responsiveness to the public, equal opportunity, shared funding, an expected lawsuit by the convention center contractor and San Diego’s ambition to be a center of international trade.

Most candidates offered little in the way of concrete solutions, stressing their qualifications and commitment to delve into the issues.