North County: Oceanside Charter Bid Falters

Four years after it was defeated the first time, a proposal to make Oceanside a charter city appeared headed for rejection again at the polls Tuesday night.

Backers of Proposition H had argued that charter status would reform politics in Oceanside by expanding the five-member City Council to seven members and by creating council districts.

But voters were told by proposition foes that the charter measure was a ploy to keep the current council majority in power, to raise taxes and to rescind the city’s mobile home rent-control ordinance.

“I think even more than in ‘86, the voters are sending a message to the City Council that what’s wrong is not the form of government, but the people we’ve got,” Nancy York, a leader of the “No on H Committee” and a possible council candidate in the November election, said Tuesday night.

She claims the council engineered the charter proposal because “they want the authority to levy new and higher taxes without a vote of the people.”

But, faced with defeat, Brian Graham, who was chairman of the city Charter Review Commission, blamed charter foes for falsely stating that a charter city can raise taxes without a public vote.

“They know full well the tax issue is a non-issue,” Graham said. “They just beat it into the ground.”

Voters elsewhere in North County were generally more favorable toward ballot measures--to raise bond funds for new schools in Carlsbad and directly elect the mayor in Poway.

And, in Escondido, slow-growth advocate Jerry Harmon was passing Doug Best in the campaign to become that city’s first elected mayor.

In Carlsbad, Propositions L and M were ahead, as the Carlsbad Unified School District needed only a simply majority vote for passage of the measures to raise $10 million to meet facility demands in the growing district.

Under Proposition L, $7.5 million would be earmarked to build and equip a high school science building and a library-administration center at Carlsbad High, which was built in the 1950s for 1,750 students and is expected to have an enrollment of 2,500 by the year 2000.

A companion measure, Proposition M, sought $2.5 million for a new library and multipurpose facility at Valley Junior High.

A simple majority vote was required for passage because the propositions would extend the life of bonds approved before tax-slashing Proposition 13 became state law in 1978. Among other things, Proposition 13 now requires a two-thirds majority to pass bonds.

Together, the Carlsbad propositions would add a tax of $22 a year per $100,000 of assessed valuation on homes over the next 10 years.

In early returns, Proposition N in Fallbrook was failing to garner a two-thirds majority to authorize a $35-million bond issue to build a new high school and renovate the existing high school that was built for 1,800 students but holds 2,200.

If the proposition passes, Fallbrook homeowners will pay $25 annually per $100,000 of assessed valuation.

Meanwhile, voters in Poway were pushing to victory Proposition K, which calls for a directly elected mayor beginning with the November election. But Proposition J, which would lift a city restriction on building churches in areas with a slope of more than 10%, was trailing in early returns.

By far, the most controversial of North County’s ballot propositions has been Proposition H, the Oceanside charter proposal that went back to voters, although a similar plan was trounced in 1986 by a 61% opposition vote.

Proposition supporters maintained that the charter would make the city’s political system more representative. All five council members are now chosen in citywide elections; under a charter, four council members would have been elected from districts and the remaining three, including the mayor, would be picked in citywide balloting.

Charter advocates argued that districts would allow a council member to be elected from all sections of Oceanside and that concentrations of Latinos and blacks would have a better chance of electing a representative from a heavily minority district.

In a community where developer contributions have financed some citywide council races, charter supporters have said that switching to smaller council districts would allow candidates to seek election without relying on heavy developer campaign spending.

Both the Oceanside Chamber of Commerce and the Oceanside Merchants Assn. endorsed the charter plan.

But two grass-roots organizations, the No on H Committee and the No on Charter Committee, waged spirited campaigns against the proposal, asserting that charter cities, unlike those that operate completely under state rules, have greater authority to raise taxes.

Further, opponents have scoffed at the notion of political reform under the charter, arguing that the proposed district system would only help the pro-growth council majority stay in power. They also declared that mobile home park owners are backing the charter in hopes of neutralizing the voting power of tenants who are protected by rent control.

Contrary to some predictions, the campaign was fairly inexpensive, as both sides together raised less than $10,000.

Yet the campaign had a few bitter moments, such as during the final few days when Proposition H supporters circulated a hit piece linking the anti-charter effort to controversial slow-growth City Councilwoman Melba Bishop.