O’Connor Is Notably Absent From County’s First ‘Drought Summit’ : Water: Mayor’s office says city of San Diego doesn’t recognize a higher authority to oversee what it does.

Earlier this month, when San Diego County Supervisor Susan Golding first proposed a “Drought Summit,” she said she wanted to gather city, county and water officials from around the county for a free-flowing exchange of ideas.

At a 3 1/2-hour meeting Wednesday, Golding did just that, but with one notable absence. Among the 37 officials who discussed dual piping systems, conservation offsets and the need for more storage facilities, Maureen O’Connor, the mayor of the county’s largest water-using city, was nowhere to be seen.

“We specifically did not send somebody there,” said Paul Downey, O’Connor’s spokesman. “We don’t recognize the authority of the county to oversee what the city of San Diego is doing. We’re happy to be cooperative. But we’re not going to be in the position of having anybody tell us what we can or can’t do.”

Instead, Downey said, O’Connor mailed a letter Wednesday to Gov. Pete Wilson, requesting a meeting to discuss reducing the 50% cutback goal in light of the recent heavy rains throughout the state.

“The water people have the myopic, narrow viewpoint that we’ve got to fill the reservoirs,” Downey said, adding that that applies to state and county officials as well as to the Metropolitan Water District, the region’s wholesaler. “Every single one of them keeps telling us that this (rain) is a drop in the bucket, and it doesn’t make any difference. . . . It doesn’t wash. They’ve got a major credibility gap.”

O’Connor’s own credibility came into question earlier this week after The Times reported that her Point Loma home consumed more than twice as much water as she had previously reported--enough to place the mayor and her husband among the city’s top 100 residential water users.

Despite the negative attention that disclosure has focused on O’Connor’s voluntary conservation program, Downey said Wednesday that the mayor will continue to seek to appeal the County Water Authority’s mandatory water use prohibitions, which go into effect April 1.

“All their predictions and all of their plans were based on their belief that it wasn’t going to rain anymore,” Downey said, adding that O’Connor is “fairly confident” she will get the votes at next Tuesday’s City Council meeting to approve the appeal.

“Even if we took half of the water that has gone into the reservoir over the past few weeks and distributed it to the cities, you’d still have more water saved than before,” Downey said.

Despite O’Connor’s absence--she was in San Francisco attending a state Public Utilities Commission hearing on the proposed merger of San Diego Gas & Electric and Southern California Edison--Golding said she was pleased with Wednesday’s turnout.

The group, although not an official body, adopted an informal statement of support for the 50% cuts and the water authority’s restrictions. It also voted to create a committee to help coordinate the region’s drought response.

The committee will be composed of one representative each from the county, the water authority, one small water district, one small city and the city of San Diego. Jan Goldsmith, the mayor of Poway, proposed that the city of San Diego’s representative be Councilman Bob Filner, the deputy mayor, who is a harsh critic of O’Connor.

Filner, who attended the meeting, said it would be up to the entire City Council to decide who the representative will be. But he said something must be done to repair the damage O’Connor’s attitude has done to San Diego’s reputation.

“We are being hurt as a county . . . (and) as a city by the actions being pursued by the top of our leadership,” Filner said. “The mayor refused to join this summit. But the mayor is one member of a (nine-member) City Council that will make the decisions. I would hope we would not take actions that will lead us to be seen as a laughingstock for the state.”

When asked about O’Connor’s absence, Golding said: “I’m not going to allow this to become a debate between individual elected officials. Of course, I would hope we would all speak with the same voice. But, if we cannot agree, we should go forward and say what we think.”

Late Wednesday, the water authority scheduled a special board meeting for 4 p.m. today to discuss the water supply and the status of the authority’s pipelines that cross under the San Luis Rey River.

Becky Coates, a water authority spokeswoman, said the meeting is intended in part to address the public’s many questions that have been prompted by recent rainstorms. The meeting will be held at the authority’s headquarters at 3211 5th Ave., San Diego.