Charter Issue Again Bodes an Oceanside Donnybrook

Despite the illusion of political tranquility, Oceanside’s latest plunge into possibly becoming a charter city is rife with suspicions that are building toward an open conflict.

A special citizens’ commission is drafting a charter proposal with reforms aimed at spreading political power throughout the city and, in the process, helping minority candidates run for the City Council.

Specifically, the commission wants to switch from the existing system in which the council’s five members are chosen at large in citywide elections. Instead, there would be a seven-member council, with the two additional members and a full-time mayor being elected at large and four members being chosen from special council districts.

“The big question is control of the city,” said Brian Graham, the commission chairman who points out that three current council members live near each other. “We don’t have true representation of the governed when most of the council is from the same area.

“There are a lot of people who feel disenfranchised,” he said, arguing that carving out council districts would draw greater political participation from all parts of the city.

Three council members live in the Fire Mountain area.

But there’s a segment of Oceanside that thinks Graham’s exhortations about democracy ring hollow. They suspect that a new political system is a coy attempt to keep a pro-growth majority on the council and make anti-development candidates more vulnerable to attack.

“The movement to get this charter only surfaced when slow growth became a real contender,” said Nancy York, a local lawyer who ran unsuccessfully for the council two years ago. “They’re afraid a slow-growth majority will get on the council.”

The commission’s recent public hearings have raised only scant visible interest and debate. Seven people went to one session and 12 to another. But, York said, “There will be organized opposition to this. No question.”

It won’t be the first time.

In 1986, Oceanside had a bruising fight over changing from a general-law city to a charter city, the difference being that the latter form of government has somewhat more authority over its affairs.

When the dust settled, the charter proposal, which involved establishing council districts and beefing-up the city staff, was bluntly defeated by an opposition vote of 61%.

Backers of that charter attempt maintain that the voters were largely soured by the expense of creating new bureaucratic positions, but foes say there was also much skepticism over dropping at-large elections and going to council districts.

At any rate, the city is again exploring taking a new charter proposal before the voters, perhaps as early as the June ballot. The debate so far has been low-key, nobody wanting to do battle, at least until the commission finishes drafting its plan. But nobody expects the peace to last.

“All the people against it in ’86 are still against it. They don’t want to come out too early,” said York.

“Oceanside has a history of taking its politics seriously,” Councilwoman Lucy Chavez said, remembering “two to three recalls and some of the rottenest campaigns that ever were.”

The rumblings so far on the charter issue suggest the city’s tradition will continue.

As Graham sees it, the commission’s main work is to craft a plan that would make local government more open. The plan’s centerpiece would be enlarging the council by two members, electing a full-time mayor with a $34,000 annual salary (that’s $10,000 more than the mayor is paid now), and establishing districts.

Graham, who beside leading the charter commission is also president of the Oceanside Merchants Assn., claims that the changes would encourage minorities to seek office and limit the influence of big campaign contributions from developers.

Of Oceanside’s 1988 population of 125,000 people, 61% were white, 21% Hispanic, 8% black and 5% Asian or other.

“Minorities in this city are shamefully under-represented” politically because of the cost of campaigning and feeling there’s little chance of getting elected, Graham said.

It costs $10,000 to $15,000 to win a council seat, he said, adding “that’s not representative politics, that’s big bucks.” Graham says the remedy is to create districts, including some that contain a significant minority population and therefore a natural constituency for minority candidates.

Graham reasons that small election districts would reduce the influence of special interests, on the theory that district candidates wouldn’t have to depend on large campaign war chests like citywide candidates do. However, campaign spending reports in the city of San Diego showed that new district-only elections did not reduce campaign spending.

“We’re unstacking the deck,” he said. “Right now, the only way to win a seat on the council is big bucks from developers. If you go to district representation, we break that power.”

He said the commission hasn’t decided yet who would draw up the election districts, but he emphasized the need for objectivity.

But York contends that minority representation is a phony issue and argues that there has been no problem getting minorities elected. She points to the current council as an example.

“You’ve got an Hispanic (Chavez) on the council, women on the council, senior citizens on the council, and two members with Native American blood,” she said.

Another veteran foe of a charter, Harriett Bledsoe, who was active in the No on Charter Committee in 1986, disagrees with Graham that creating council districts would stem the power of special-interest campaign contributions.

If anything, Bledsoe argued, pro-growth forces might find it easier to defeat candidates in small districts. “They can target an area and pour money in. A person without a lot of money doesn’t stand a chance,” she said.

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