Mayor Not Swayed by Furor Over Water Meter

Unbowed by public furor over her extensive personal water use, San Diego Mayor Maureen O’Connor is vowing no retreat from her commitment to oppose mandatory water use restrictions in San Diego or her campaign for smaller water cutbacks from the state, her spokesman said Tuesday.

O’Connor on Tuesday asked the state Department of Water Resources to “reassess the necessity for a 50% water cutback” in light of recent heavy rains and snows.

“Please give this matter the priority attention it deserves and reassess the necessity for a 50% water cutback,” O’Connor wrote to David N. Kennedy, director of the state Department of Water Resources. “Every percentage point translates to vital jobs.”

Mayoral spokesman Paul Downey, who has spent much of the past two days fielding telephone calls from the media and public about O’Connor’s personal water consumption, said that the mayor “feels as strongly--if not more strongly--about continuing what she’s doing, especially when she sees it continuing to rain.”

The Times reported Sunday that O’Connor’s Point Loma home consumed more than twice as much water as the mayor and the city Water Utilities Department had previously acknowledged--enough, in fact, to place O’Connor and her husband, Robert O. Peterson, among the city’s top 100 residential water users.

O’Connor released statistics last week showing her 1990 average daily water use at 3,248 gallons after The Times questioned her about a second water meter at her nearly 2-acre home site. O’Connor said that she had been unaware of the second meter, which was billed to a separate address.

Those developments, coming amid O’Connor’s insistent, high-profile campaign for a voluntary water conservation program for her city, have made her the target of scathing commentary on local radio talk shows, triggered irate telephone calls to her office, insider jokes, public gossip and, Tuesday afternoon, a critical editorial in the San Diego Tribune, a newspaper ordinarily supportive of her policies.

“The mayor has been seriously disabled as she tries to rally support for voluntary conservation,” said the Tribune editorial, lamenting the mayor’s “water-gate.”

“She will raise scoffs of derision rather than an outpouring of civic duty when she asks the public to make sacrifices in the name of saving water,” the editorial said.

Reached in Hawaii at the Hyatt Regency Waikoloa, where she was leading San Diego’s bid for the 1993 Super Bowl, O’Connor said Wednesday, “I heard my office had been receiving calls. . . . We’ve cut back 60%, and I’m not asking anybody to do something that I’m not personally doing.”

She said she would continue to favor voluntary water cutbacks and opposes the decision by the Metropolitan Water District and the San Diego County Water Authority to cut back by 50%.

“Based on the present rains, and as far as I’m concerned, the drought is over. The 50% cutbacks would mean that major jobs would be lost. And I am opposed to that. You’re talking about laying off landscapers, people who build homes, people who work in the construction business, people who work in hotels. A 50% cutback is not necessary based on the current rain we’re receiving that all the experts said would not come.”

However, a state Department of Water Resources official has said that even a year of normal rainfall throughout the state would not lead to a declaration that the drought was over because it would take more than that to fill reservoirs and replenish ground water basins.

Downey said that O’Connor’s office has received up to 60 telephone calls from citizens outraged about her water use and second meter, but that many callers have been placated when reminded of two points: That the mayor voluntarily released the damaging information, and that she has personally exceeded the conservation goals she set for San Diego.

The mayor’s statistics, confirmed by information released Monday by the Water Utilities Department, show that her home used 12.8% less water in 1990 than the previous year. For the one month period between Feb. 13 and March 14, 1991, O’Connor saved 51.5% over the previous year and 61.5% over 1989, the mayor’s statistics show.

The most recent savings were achieved by overhauling sprinkler use at her heavily landscaped home and, when rains came, by turning off the irrigation system entirely.

O’Connor has been criticized by public officials, from Gov. Pete Wilson to San Diego City Councilman Bob Filner, for her adamant stance in favor of voluntary conservation. But some officials say that the mayor’s personal consumption will not hurt her campaign to overturn widely adopted public policy requiring mandatory water use restrictions.

Robert Potter, deputy director of the state Department of Water Resources, expressed dismay about O’Connor’s predictions last week that the drought might be ending, but said he was “impressed” by her personal water cutbacks.

“Maybe if she can portray that to her constituents, if she can show them how she accomplished it and help them to accomplish that on their holdings, who could ask for more?” Potter said.

Mike Madigan, chairman of the San Diego County Water Authority, which last week imposed the mandatory consumption prohibitions that O’Connor has vowed to appeal, said that O’Connor’s personal use “has nothing to do with” her public stance in favor of voluntary conservation.

“I’ve talked to the mayor enough to know that she and her husband are struggling to reduce (their) water use,” Madigan said.

Speaking in Hawaii, O’Connor said, “It’s a March miracle. All the experts said we couldn’t get to 34% (cutback). We are at 34%. . . . We did it voluntarily. You didn’t have to ask anybody. You didn’t have to punish anybody. And you didn’t have to fine anybody. And no other city in this state can come up with those numbers. I’m proud of San Diegans, and I’ve done my share. I’ve cut back 60% at my own home.”

Meanwhile, a city Water Utilities Department official suggested Tuesday that O’Connor and Peterson might be entitled to a small refund because they have been paying sewer use charges on the water from the previously undisclosed water meter. The water from that meter serves a fish pond, O’Connor’s pool and expanses of mature trees, the mayor has said.

Because the water is not returned to the sewer, O’Connor technically should not be paying sewer charges on it, said Steve Hogan, a deputy director of the city Water Utilities Department. Statistics released by the department show that O’Connor paid $37.30 in sewer fees in each of the past three two-month billing periods, and smaller amounts before that.

However, Hogan said, it is the consumer’s responsibility to notify the Water Utilities Department that a meter is no longer being used for residential purposes and therefore should not be assessed sewer charges.

“If there’s no residence, the mayor would have to apply for a refund, just like anybody else,” Hogan said. Typically, the city will provide refunds for major leaks, incorrect billings or inaccurate meter estimates stretching back 90 days, Hogan said.

City records show that the previously undisclosed water meter was installed in 1958 and replaced in 1987 as part of normal maintenance. It remained in use after Peterson acquired the lot more than two decades ago, combined it with the adjacent property and built his dream home, O’Connor has said.

Times staff writers Ralph Frammolino in Sacramento and Michael Granberry in Kohala, Hawaii, contributed to this story.