THE CALIFORNIA DROUGHT : Uneven Responses Raise Fairness Issue : San Diego: Mayor Maureen O’Connor urges residents to conserve water, but remains opposed to mandatory cuts. Supervisors may soon impose countywide standards.

As the first heavy rain in months began to fall last week, Mayor Maureen O’Connor “strongly” suggested that San Diegans turn off their automatic sprinkler systems.

“The mayor said the projected rainfall will throughly saturate the ground and preclude the need for watering,” noted a press release that urged what many Southern California cities have already required.

Welcome to California’s most serious drought ever, San Diego-style.

While cities and water districts throughout the state have imposed tough, mandatory restrictions, O’Connor, the mayor of the state’s second-largest city, has been a stubborn holdout for voluntary cutbacks, steadfast in her belief that conservation can be coaxed out of her civic-minded electorate.

The fact that San Diego County relies upon the Metropolitan Water District for 95% of its water--and that the MWD announced overall cutbacks of 50%--has not changed O’Connor’s mind.

“I’m proud to be San Diego’s mayor because our style is different,” she said recently, explaining why the city is alone among San Diego County’s 23 water districts to adopt voluntary instead of mandatory water conservation measures.

Let other cities impose “mean-spirited” mandatory measures, she says. Voluntary cutbacks will work for San Diego, she insists--all politicians have to do is ask.

“Every time we have asked San Diegans to conserve, they have,” O’Connor told the council last week as she proposed a voluntary program she said will save 30% in March. “Yes, we are in a crisis situation. But pitting neighborhood against neighborhood is not the way to solve it.”

In fact, O’Connor’s voluntary water conservation program achieved its goal of a 10% reduction in water use last summer. From September through December, the city never topped 5% savings. In January, San Diego residents averaged 10.3%.

But now some city staffers acknowledge that voluntary measures will not be enough.

“That’s an awful lot of savings to reach on voluntary,” said John Lockwood, the former city manager, just before he retired this week.

On Tuesday, San Diego County supervisors put in place a mechanism that could force the city’s first mandatory restrictions. Stressing they were not eager to usurp city rights, the supervisors declared a local state of emergency that is designed, they said, to create a countywide blueprint for response to the drought.

O’Connor’s handling of the drought is the latest example of a brand of political leadership typified by from-the-heart appeals to fellow San Diegans, whom she considers somehow more civic-minded than other Californians.

With little apparent interest in the nuts and bolts of governing, the mayor relies on her ability to mobilize the city’s circle of wealthy and powerful, her schoolgirl charm and her instinctive knowledge of how native San Diegans will respond.

Drought crisis or not, she loathes imposing restrictions on her public, especially ones that might crimp the famous laid-back San Diego lifestyle.

Critics say that O’Connor is contributing to a perception that this fast-growing city is responding too slowly to the enduring drought.

Councilman Bob Filner says that his colleagues’ willingness to follow O’Connor’s lead has been irresponsible. “We are sending mixed signals,” he said.

As yet, such criticism has not fazed O’Connor. In sparring with Filner recently, she told him: “I know you get tired of my cutesy ‘I am from San Diego’ approach. . . . But I would rather have too much faith in this community than too little.”