Voters Supporting Gann Waiver, Not Expanded Council

San Diegans on Tuesday showed surprisingly strong support for a waiver on the Gann spending limit, as well as for a $25-million bond issue that would finance a badly needed police and fire communications system.

However, Proposition B, which would have expanded the size of the city’s eight-member City Council, was being defeated by a 2-1 margin.

With close to two-thirds of the vote counted, Proposition E, which would fund a new police and fire communications system, was hovering at just over the two-thirds majority needed for passage.

Voters seemed to be supporting Proposition C, which would allow the city to reapportion council districts earlier than the 1993 date stipulated in the City Charter.

Without Proposition D, which would authorize a four-year extension to an existing waiver on the so-called Gann spending limit, the council would have to consider dramatic cuts in municipal services. Cuts of $35 million to $40 million would have to be made in the budget beginning July 1, 1991, Assistant City Manager Jack McGrory said Monday.

Although the city’s general fund will exceed $400 million during that fiscal year, there will be relatively little room for cutting, since that fund pays for police and fire services, trash collection and “people” programs such as the library, the arts, parks and recreation.

With such severe budget cuts looming, Mayor Maureen O’Connor believes that “we would almost have to go back (to the voters) in November” to seek approval of the waiver should the proposition be defeated, her spokesman, Paul Downey, said Tuesday.

If Proposition D fails, the council will have to determine if the issue will once again be placed on the ballot. “Given the situation we’d face without the Gann waiver, we’d almost have no other choice,” Downey said.

If the waiver were defeated again in November, the council could place it before voters for a third time during a special election early in 1991, according to Chris Crotty, executive director of San Diegans for the Gann Waiver.

The Gann waiver’s strong showing left Crotty “surprised. . . . Last time they poured lots of time and money into (the Gann waiver campaign) and won by only 523 votes. . . . this time there was just me and about $8,000 for the campaign.”

Crotty said his meagerly funded campaign hit hard at the fact that city services would be cut dramatically if the waiver were not approved. Voters evidently believed that message, which was “simple to frame,” he said. Voters also seemed to understand that the waiver would not increase taxes, Crotty said.

Proposition D came four years after San Diegans approved the initial Gann waiver, by just 510 votes, or a slim 50.2%.

The waiver was sought because the Gann spending limit, approved by Californians in 1979, placed a ceiling on the revenue that municipalities can spend. But revenues are growing faster than the formula created in 1979 to keep pace with inflation.

The probable defeat of Proposition B, which would have expanded the City Council to 10 members, does not spell the end of the fight for “fair representation,” according to former San Diego City Councilman Jess Haro, who led the fight to place the measure on the ballot.

“I’m very disappointed,” he said. “But this issue will be back for a number of reasons . . . because the arguments about fair representation and the city’s (dramatic population) growth are still there.”

Haro predicted that the issue will resurface within a year, either through a council vote or another ballot measure. “It’s very similar to district elections, which lost four times before it won,” he said.

Haro did not rule out another lawsuit aimed at evening out representation for the city’s growing Latino population. Proposition B was placed on the ballot as part of a settlement that ended a lawsuit filed by the Chicano Federation against the city of San Diego.

The City Council’s size was last expanded in 1965, when it rose from six members to eight.

The strong support for Proposition E, the communications system measure, was surprising, observers said, given the fact that little campaigning was done and it required a two-thirds majority.

Most opponents of the proposition have agreed that a new police and fire communications system is needed, but many believed it was an item that should have been included in the city’s budget process, not placed on the ballot.