Council Spars Over Private Meeting on Growth-Control Issues

The San Diego City Council’s daylong growth-control session Tuesday began on a terse note when Mayor Maureen O’Connor questioned whether a city consultant had unwittingly “tainted” the city’s proposed growth-control ordinance during a recent meeting at Councilman Bob Filner’s house.

O’Connor touched off a round of verbal sparring with Filner when she directed City Atty. John Witt to determine if Robert Freilich, a Kansas City-based attorney who advises the city in growth issues, had discussed specific parts of the city’s still-evolving growth-control document at the invitation-only meeting at Filner’s house.

That meeting, which Filner described as an offshoot of a previous meeting that was funded by a state grant, was attended by a small number of environmentalists, developers and representatives of minority groups.

Filner said the group that met at his house discussed “city policy . . . we weren’t talking about any specific projects.”

After Tuesday’s council meeting, Freilich denied he had discussed anything other than general policies and issues in the growth-control arena.

Filner described the meeting as “far more productive than the session you (O’Connor) chair in City Council.” Filner also told O’Connor he would continue to hold “discussions on that (growth-control) policy with as many people and as diverse a group that I can get together.”

Filner then described O’Connor’s request for a city attorney investigation as an attempt to “intimidate members of City Council” by restricting their right to freely discuss important issues with the public.

But O’Connor maintained that, although the meeting “might have been kosher . . . in this business, appearance is everything. . . . I’m not going to sit here . . . and say it’s OK for a half-dozen people to have exclusive, intimate conversations with our consultant when everybody else . . . was not invited.”

O’Connor’s suggestion that a small group of citizens is receiving special treatment prompted Councilman Bruce Henderson to complain that, increasingly, “very important matters” are being decided at the City Council with little public input or council debate.

Echoing comments O’Connor made Monday during the council’s stormy redistricting session, Henderson suggested that, during several recent votes, “suddenly, five votes appear (and) there is little if any public discussion . . . because obviously the matter was decided in private in some fashion best known to the participants.”

But Henderson, like O’Connor, stopped short of alleging any violations of the Brown Act, which generally prohibits council members from making decisions in private.

“I wouldn’t accuse anyone here of violating the Brown Act,” Henderson said. “But I certainly feel that a number of things have happened, particularly in the past three or four months, that have violated the spirit of the Brown Act.”

When the council finally opened its meeting to gather public testimony, members heard from dozens of San Diegans with opinions on the two emergency ordinances that are designed to limit the impact new development will have on the city’s already strained transportation network.

The ordinances, which are scheduled for a council vote next Tuesday, would set annual limits on residential, commercial and industrial projects that can be built.

The ordinances also would tie new development to a long-term public works program that is designed to provide public services needed to maintain San Diego’s much talked about “quality of life.”

However, development industry representatives, who Tuesday described the ordinances as a building cap, threatened to subject council’s actions to a court challenge.

“We do oppose the emergency ordinances or taking any action until all information is in your hands,” said Chamber of Commerce spokesman Mel Katz. “The need for an emergency ordinance has not been established in compliance with the City Charter.”

Developers maintained that the slowing economy already has slapped growth controls on San Diego. For example, Katz said, the 6,235 building permits issued during 1989 represented “the lowest number since the recession in 1982.”

Katz maintained that most of the 4,521 permits issued so far during 1990 came during a flurry of activity in January when “talk of growth ordinances” once again surfaced.

A spokesman for the Construction Industry Federation argued that there is no basis for an emergency ordinance, an opinion echoed by at least two council members.

“I don’t know why we should be enacting this ordinance as an emergency,” Councilman Wes Pratt said. “I don’t think there’s going to be an emergency next week” when the council is slated to vote on the two ordinances.

“There clearly is an emergency, however, it’s a political emergency,” said Councilman Ron Roberts, who argued that the City Council should not rush an unfinished ordinance into existence.

In a related development Tuesday, the Coalition for San Diego gave a preliminary report on the study it is funding to determine the economic impact on fees associated with the city’s proposed growth ordinances. The coalition is a self-appointed civic and business group that opposes development caps.

Preliminary data suggests that the fees would make it economically unfeasible to build many commercial and industrial projects, according to Mac Strobl, a coalition member.

Preliminary results of the study suggest “very few projects would work (from an economic perspective), particularly if you add proposed regional fees to the city’s fees,” Strobl said. “The least affected would be single-family homes . . . but industrial and commercial would be significantly more affected.”