Both Sides in Recall Attempt Trade Venom : Politics: The Oct. 29 recall election of Oceanside Vice Mayor Melba Bishop brings out the ruthless side of the antagonists, who are busy slinging mud.

Policemen and firemen have turned political adversaries, City Hall is sinking under low morale, nasty hit pieces are circulating to voters all around town and a libel suit is before the Superior Court.

And there’s still an action-packed week left before the Oct. 29 recall election of Oceanside Vice Mayor Melba Bishop in a go-for-the-throat campaign over who holds power in San Diego County’s third largest city.

“Free-for-all, that’s a good term for it,” said Brian Graham, spokesman for the Oceanside Merchants Assn., which thinks that finally, after years of opposing Bishop, the sweet scent of her political demise is in the air.

But, in a recall campaign that’s inflaming most of the community, Bishop, a savvy street fighter and a demonstrated political survivor, isn’t entertaining any notions of defeat and disgrace.

With an innovative strategy to win, Bishop’s forces have aggressively gotten about 6,000 supporters to request absentee ballots, virtually putting a big bloc of votes in the bank even before election day.

“Before election day, you’ve already got votes locked up,” said political consultant and Bishop backer Bob Glaser. “It’s the sexy thing in political campaigns these days.”

Although both sides predictably forecast victory in Oceanside’s latest public slugfest, there are hints of an expected unusually heavy turnout among the city’s 58,000 voters for Bishop’s political judgment day.

By the standards of a city this size, about 125,000 people, it’s been a fairly high-priced campaign, as each side has raised about $40,000 to blaspheme the other through advertising and political literature.

It was nearly a year ago that Bishop’s fortunes were glittering as voters elected two allies, Nancy York and Don Rodee, to form a slow-growth majority on the City Council.

But immediately, the Bishop-led troika offended some segments of the community by its raw exercise of power in firing half the city’s appointed Planning Commission, stripping directly elected Mayor Larry Bagley of some authority, and slashing police and fire services to ease a budget deficit.

Bishop later acknowledged that the new council came on like gangbusters and perhaps lacked restraint, but she defended the need to replace pro-growth commissioners, curtail the mayor who no longer represented a council majority and take decisive action to save the budget.

However, the perception of abusive political arrogance became the talk of the town, creating new enemies for Bishop and giving her established foes a perfect opening to strike.

Ten months into the recall that has bypassed freshmen council members York and Rodee, here’s the battlefield lineup:

Trying to unseat Bishop in the third year of her second four-year term are Bagley, who lost control of the council to Bishop’s majority, and former Councilwoman Lucy Chavez, who was defeated in last November’s bitter election. Also actively waging the recall are the Oceanside Merchants Assn. and the Oceanside Firefighters Assn.

Supporting Bishop are the Oceanside Police Officers Assn. and a loyal following in the city’s mobile home parks, where Bishop has maintained favor through her support of the city’s rent-control ordinance. Also behind her is PLAN! Prevent Los Angelization Now!, a countywide citizens’ group for managed growth.

A phalanx of community notables stand on either side, and the real fight has been taken into the quiet suburban neighborhoods by hordes of volunteers going door to door and using telephone banks.

Bishop backers are relying on her reputation as a modern prairie populist who defended the city’s neighborhoods against pell-mell growth that has crowded the city and strained vital city services.

“Throughout the years, Melba has been known as a champion of the neighborhoods,” said Bishop loyalist Dixie Bales. “I believe we have large support from all over.”

Bales said voters see through the smoke of claims and innuendo, and realize that the election is nothing other than a brazen attempt to undo last November’s victory that put a new slow-growth force on the council.

“It’s couched in many allegations, but the old guard wants the majority back,” she said.

However, whatever political innocence existed in Oceanside--there was never much to begin with--was lost when both sides hired outside consultants to help orchestrate their campaigns.

The firefighters hired Jack Orr, a brass-knuckled consultant who led the successful campaign to yank San Diego City Councilwoman Linda Bernhardt from office earlier this year.

Orr said Bishop is highly vulnerable because she supported the cost-cutting Fire Department reorganization that firefighters believe has reduced staffing and the quality of fire protection, including slower emergency response time.

“We’re particularly strong among single-family homeowners,” said Orr, who is counting on the homeowners’ fears over supposedly inadequate fire protection to propel them to the polls.

But, on another note, Orr, who has observed Oceanside’s tumultuous goings-on since 1979, mused that something unique makes the politics especially rough and intense here. “It’s personalities. They just clash with incredible vengeance,” he said.

Glaser, who was on opposite sides with Orr in the Bernhardt recall, finds the Oceanside campaign odious for a reason other than a mere conflict among strong political personalities.

“It’s a very visceral campaign when you’re trying to motivate a vote by threatening their safety,” Glaser said.

Although there’s no doubt personalities play a role, clear issues and tactics mark this as a particularly vigorous and mean-spirited recall election.

Traditionally in Oceanside, as in most communities, police and firefighters have shared a common political agenda, but this recall has driven a wedge between police and firefighter associations.

Although Bishop was alienating firemen by backing the Fire Department reorganization, she was winning over the police officers by pushing a new contract that gave them a 17.5% increase in pay and benefits despite austere times.

“I think she has a genuine interest in keeping us happy, but clearly there was a political strategy” to hold police on her side, said John Laser, president of the Police Officers Assn.

Agreement comes from Mike Powell, a spokesman for the Firefighters Assn. “Melba Bishop couldn’t afford to have both the firefighters and police officers participate in her recall . . . (that’s) always an unbeatable combination,” he said.

Laser acknowledged that his association’s vote to endorse Bishop in the recall has caused some friction with firefighters, but explained that “she’s shown longstanding support for us.”

Beside, he said, the endorsement is “just business” and doesn’t reflect a true animosity between police and firefighters.

Another group involved with the recall is the Oceanside Merchants Assn., whose spokesman, Graham, faults Bishop’s slow-growth policies for dampening the city’s business vitality.

Slow growth “has not allowed the community to grow as it should. We are stagnant. There’s no vitality. No vitality, no purchases,” said Graham. In the broader picture, though, growth hasn’t been a recall campaign issue, and local developers have largely steered clear of the fray.

With police and firefighters deeply divided, with the business community agitated, with rancor and controversy a daily matter, the recall has battered morale inside the city’s year-old, $33-million, ornate Spanish-style City Hall.

“Oh, it’s just awful around here,” said a secretary in one department who asked not to be identified. “We talk about it constantly. We just want it over with.”

What’s made the recall so intolerable are the harsh tactics and personal attacks.

At one point, Bagley sported a cap emblazoned, “Save the Whales. Harpoon Melba.” Even some recall advocates winced at what they considered a tactless personal jab at Bishop, who is heavyset.

Recall boosters have accused Bishop of favoritism because one of her children held a city job, but Bishop countered that her son lost the position because of budget cuts she supported.

Bishop said the recall “has taken such a very nasty personal turn. Taking on my children, my family, the way I look. The mayor’s hat.”

But accusations of low-road politics have become commonplace, and Ed Wicburg, leader of a pro-recall group, complained of Melba that “she’s thrown a lot of dirt on us. She keeps saying we’re running a smear campaign, but I don’t see anything we’re smearing them with.”

On that very point, Wicburg and other recall leaders are being challenged in Vista Superior Court.

Bales and other Bishop campaigners have filed a libel suit accusing Wicburg of libeling them in a piece of political literature. According to Bales, the one-page flyer accused her and her husband of being “elderly revolutionary terrorists.”

It further stated, said Bales, “that we lie and cheat and threaten people’s lives and their families.” Wicburg has denied involvement with the flyer and has filed a cross-complaint.

How such controversies will play on election day is difficult to assess.

Bishop, York and Rodee were considered to have scored a strategic gain by voting to schedule the recall on Oct. 29, rather than the traditional first Tuesday in November.

Foes accused them of holding the election on a strange date to guarantee a low voter turnout that would benefit Bishop because of her absentee voter bloc.

“I look at it as devious, it shows Melba,” said Wicburg.

However, Bishop responds that the election date makes no difference because there would be a scant turnout even if a November polling date had been chosen because, with either date, the recall issue would stand alone on the ballot rather than being combined with other candidates or propositions that would draw a broader vote.

Although Orr said “anything over 20% (turnout) would surprise hell out of me,” a different view is held by City Clerk Barbara Bishop-Smith, whose office is conducting the election.

Bishop-Smith pointed out that there was a 35.8% turnout during the city’s low-key recall election 10 years ago. This time, with passions running hot, “it’s going to be stirred up enough to get people out to vote,” she said.

She also points to the 6,000 requests for absentee ballots from Bishop supporters as a signal of elevated election interest.

Bishop, a politician trying to serve out her term, is feeling confident about the election outcome, saying, “I think right now I’m way ahead, but there are a lot of undecided.”

With the campaign in its final week, though, Bishop is bracing for an onslaught, knowing Orr’s reputation for last-minute attack. “I’m waiting to see the hit piece I suspect is coming.”

Although not providing any details, Orr told a reporter to just wait for next week.

Nothing gives him more satisfaction, Orr said, than coming out with a hit piece, and “the incumbent just sits there and goes, ‘I’m (expletive).’ ”