Committee Bottles Up Mayor’s Charter Plan

San Diego Mayor Maureen O’Connor’s call for a charter convention was bottled up in a City Council committee Wednesday, forcing the mayor to take other actions to advance her campaign for government reform.

The committee favored O’Connor’s proposal in a 3-2 vote, but the measure needed at least four votes to advance to the full council.

O’Connor has proposed a convention made up of 15 elected charter commissioners to review the City Charter and make recommendations for change. The first step for O’Connor is to get the charter convention proposal on the ballot.

For more than a year, O’Connor has attempted to get a governmental reform package through the City Council. Among the measures she has proposed are a two-term limit for local officials, which voters approved on a statewide level last November, and mayoral veto power of City Council decisions, which would be subject to a two-thirds council override.

O’Connor vowed to use one of the few exclusive powers granted the mayor’s office, that of docketing an item on the City Council’s agenda, to place the matter before the full council in the next couple of weeks, said Paul Downey, the mayor’s spokesman.

Councilman Bob Filner and Councilwoman Abbe Wolfsheimer voted against the measure.

“I can’t see that this is the time to devote city resources to this issue when we have so many pressing concerns,” Filner said. He questioned how a city that could not find the money to hire more police could afford an estimated $500,000 to put a charter convention on the September ballot.

Filner said San Diegans are not concerned with a charter revision and cited the showing of only four citizens at a meeting recently to speak in favor of revision. “I haven’t had one letter since your speech on this issue,” Filner said, referring to O’Connor’s State of the City address, made Jan. 14.

O’Connor said the lack of speakers in favor of the convention does not mean that people are unhappy with the existing hybrid form of government. “That you would sit here and say no one is concerned about it is not accurate,” she told Filner.

Councilwomen Linda Bernhardt and Judy McCarty and the mayor voted in favor of sending the recommendation to the full council. Councilman Wes Pratt left the meeting before the vote.

If the mayor’s proposal is defeated in the council, she vowed, she will “go to the streets” in an attempt to get the matter placed on the ballot by collecting petition signatures of 15%, or 85,000, registered city voters, Downey said.

Downey said retired Court of Appeal Judge Ed Butler would head O’Connor’s petition drive if it becomes necessary, as well as fund-raising campaigns to support the drive.