Mayor Says She’ll Bypass Council, Take Reforms to People

Taking the offensive on government reform for the second consecutive year, Mayor Maureen O’Connor announced Monday that she will launch a ballot initiative aimed at revamping the City Charter by holding the local equivalent of a constitutional convention.

O’Connor’s initiative, announced during her fifth State of the City Address, would allow the public to elect the 15 members of a new commission to amend the charter, bypassing the City Council members who have bottled up the mayor’s slate of government and ethics reforms for a year.

“For over one year, I have tried to get an ethics, reform and two-term limit package through the City Council,” O’Connor said in her speech at the San Diego Convention Center. “It has repeatedly been voted down. Consequently, I have already drafted the necessary ballot language for a petition to be placed before the voters. I will take the charter convention idea to the people myself.”

O’Connor also outlined a proposal for a “storybook” high-tech library on the 3-acre Lane Field site downtown that she said would be a model of electronic gadgetry, including electronic information kiosks, interactive computers, satellite teleconferencing systems and a television studio. Much of the equipment would be donated or bought from Sony Corp. of America, which has agreed to design and engineer the proposed state-of-the-art facility.

Sony would contribute 10 “learning laboratories,” worth $100,000, and absorb 50% of the cost of all equipment that the city purchases from the company.

The $70-million library, which would be designed in a juried competition of architects from around the world, would include a “children’s sculpture garden and landscaped park” that would be designed by Maya Lin, sculptor of the black granite, V-shaped Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, O’Connor announced.

O’Connor said she hopes to see ground broken on the library before she leaves office 23 months from now. O’Connor announced at her last State of the City address that she will not seek reelection in 1992.

The mayor said she hopes to persuade San Diego Unified Port District commissioners to donate the Lane Field site or lease it to the city for $1 annually, and she announced the creation of a private, nonprofit corporation to raise the funds needed for the structure. Mayoral spokesman Paul Downey said O’Connor wants the project built without public funding.

Since 1988, O’Connor has used her annual address to lay out at least one long-range, high-priority proposal. They have achieved mixed results.

The centerpiece of the mayor’s 1988 address, which proclaimed a Year of the Arts, resulted in her highly successful 1989 Soviet arts festival, but her 1989 Year of the Child had less impact. Last year, in addition to announcing that she would not run for office again, O’Connor outlined a comprehensive package of government reforms. They went nowhere.

O’Connor took both steps simultaneously to show voters that she would not profit from proposed reforms such as a mayoral veto, but many City Hall observers believe that the mayor’s extended lame-duck status helped reduce her power and was a factor in an extraordinary year of bitter political infighting on the council.

This year, however, O’Connor is seeking to enact many of the same reforms without the council’s consent. A longtime political ally, retired Appeal Court Justice Edward Butler, will run the initiative campaign, and O’Connor will back commission candidates sympathetic to her reform package.

In 1989, the council reneged on a promise and refused to place a package of charter reforms before voters.

In addition to a two-term limit for city officials and a mayoral veto, O’Connor is proposing an independent City Council redistricting commission, “realistic” campaign spending limits, a requirement that voters approve the sale or exchange of 80 acres or more of city-owned land, and other provisions.

O’Connor’s chief council antagonist, Deputy Mayor Bob Filner, embraced the mayor’s call for a convention that would examine “the total structure of government.”

“The mayor is right. We have outgrown the old system,” Filner said, referring to the city’s current hybrid government. Under the current system, the mayor is elected citywide, but council members are elected solely within their districts, another major factor in the tensions on the current council.

Breaking with tradition that calls for the deputy mayor to introduce the mayor at the ceremony, O’Connor bypassed Filner in favor of an ally, Councilman Ron Roberts.

Roberts, considered a leading contender for O’Connor’s post, strongly endorsed the two-term limit and said he wanted to hear more about the charter convention before issuing an opinion. But Roberts did say that “we’ve really gone past the point where we can sit and stonewall change.”

Councilman Wes Pratt said he is “interested in looking at (O’Connor’s plan), but I’m interested in looking in an extensive, deliberative process.”

The address, complemented by graphics displayed on a screen above the mayor’s head, included a moment of prayer for American troops in the Middle East and a proposal by O’Connor that the city make up the lost pay of all city employees serving in the military reserves who have been called to active duty. The mayor called on private businesses to do the same.