S.D. Growth Initiative Cut From Ballot

A Superior Court judge tossed a San Diego growth management initiative off the June, 1992, ballot Wednesday, ruling that its provisions violate a state constitutional mandate restricting such measures to single subjects.

In an unusual pre-election decision, Judge James R. Milliken said that language calling for prevailing wages for construction workers “is not reasonably germane” to the purpose of the Planned Growth and Taxpayer Relief Initiative sponsored by the growth control organization Prevent Los Angelization Now!

“The average voter certainly would not be able to discern from the title of this initiative, which purports to limit growth in San Diego, that construction workers in San Diego would be the direct beneficiaries of a voter-mandated requirement that they be paid at the ‘prevailing’ rate,” Milliken wrote.

He acknowledged that “abundant case law” limits a judge’s power to intervene before an election without “a clear showing” of an initiative’s invalidity. But he called the prevailing-wage provision “a clear violation” of the state constitution’s single-subject rule.

PLAN!’s initiative, petitioned onto the ballot after a $122,000 signature-gathering campaign, seeks to force builders to pay their share of the services required to accompany new development. It would prohibit new construction if that growth reduces the number of police per capita or increases the likelihood of water shortages, water rationing or increased water rates.

Critics from the building industry and the business sector have called the measure a blueprint for economic devastation in a city battered by recession.

An attorney for a local plumbers union, which had intervened on behalf of the initiative, said an appeal of Milliken’s decision is “very likely.” Peter Navarro, chairman of PLAN!, another intervenor, said his group has made no decision on an appeal. Officials with the city of San Diego, the defendant in the lawsuit brought by a business group, could not be reached for comment.

Milliken’s decision was a major setback for PLAN! and its allies, who spent months raising small donations for the costly campaign that qualified the initiative for the ballot. The plumbers union, which contributed heavily to the initiative through its political action arm, would also be a loser if voters are denied a chance to see the initiative.

Activists on both sides of the growth issue differed over whether removal of the measure from the ballot would hurt Navarro’s expected campaign for mayor of San Diego next year.

“The impact of the decision is to potentially deprive 82,000 San Diegans who signed the initiative from having it put on the ballot, and deprive 1 million San Diegans . . . the right to vote on what everybody knows we desperately need, which is a comprehensive plan to manage our growth,” Navarro said.

He said the judge’s decision “hardens my resolve to go forward” in what is now an exploratory mayoral campaign. Until Wednesday, Navarro and his group’s initiative were destined to appear on the same ballot June 2.

“Just about any time that voters are denied the opportunity to voice their opinion, it’s sad,” said Michael Shames, chairman of the Sierra Club’s Political Committee, which had endorsed the measure. But Shames, an attorney, said he considers Milliken’s ruling on the single-subject issue accurate.

He also said that removal of the measure from the ballot--if upheld by higher courts--could unite the city’s many growth control advocates behind Navarro. “Now, when people talk about growth, it will become synonymous with his candidacy,” Shames said.

Building industry and business representatives expressed their satisfaction in tempered language, with some predicting that the legal battle over the initiative will go to the California Supreme Court before it is decided.

Mac Strobl, a political consultant and one of the plaintiffs in the business-backed lawsuit, cautioned anti-initiative forces to continue planning a political campaign against the measure, in case higher courts reverse Milliken’s ruling. But Strobl said the ruling “vindicates what we were convinced of, in terms of the impropriety” of the initiative’s language.

Removal of the initiative from the ballot would deny Navarro a platform in his run for the city’s top post, Strobl said.

“I’m very pleased, not only from the building industry’s point of view, but for the general economic welfare of the city of San Diego,” said Jim Hansen, president of the county’s Building Industry Assn. “That initiative would have been devastating to the economic health of our city.”

The key sections of the measure mandate “livable wage rates” for construction workers on all but the smallest housing, commercial, industrial and infrastructure projects. The measure calls for use of state prevailing wage rates as a benchmark.

Mark Aaronson, attorney for the Plumbers & Steamfitters Local No. 230, said legal precedent requires Milliken to approve the initiative as long as its sections are “reasonably related to a common theme or purpose.”

In an Oct. 3 hearing before Milliken, Aaronson said paying livable wages would attract a well-trained work force, minimizing costly accidents and construction defects that might jeopardize public safety and cost taxpayers money.

“It is not for the judge to second-guess the relationship of the various provisions of an initiative as stated by its framers,” Aaronson said Wednesday.

But Jay Hanson, attorney for the newly formed San Diegans for Economic Stability, which filed the lawsuit, called Milliken’s interpretation of the single-subject rule “exactly correct.”

“He went right to the heart of the matter,” Hanson said.

Hanson also said that he is not sure whether the two intervenors have the legal right to appeal the ruling. Aaronson said there is little doubt that his group has the right and willingness to appeal.