Council Keeps Slow-Growth Issue Off Ballot : Politics: In a 5-to-4 vote, the City Counicl refused to put the initiative on the ballot, but the issue may surface again.

Delaying one showdown over growth management but perhaps setting the stage for an even more contentious confrontation, the San Diego City Council on Monday refused to place on next June’s ballot a controversial growth initiative ruled unconstitutional by a judge.

By a 5-4 vote that reflected the close division on an issue that remains one of the most volatile in San Diego politics, the council, reversing an action it took in September, rejected a request from the growth control group Prevent Los Angelization Now! to split its proposed initiative into two ballot measures as a means of overcoming the legal obstacles facing it.

While business leaders, whose lobbying effort against the measure was one of the most intensive seen at City Hall in recent years, jubilantly hailed the council’s action, PLAN! leader Peter Navarro called it “a sad day for democracy” and predicted that the growth issue will soon be back before the council, perhaps via a new initiative.

The council’s action also will make him “think more seriously” about a potential mayoral campaign next year, Navarro added.

“This issue will not go away,” said Navarro, whose group had gathered about 82,000 signatures on initiative petitions. “We will not give up, we will not stop until we have a comprehensive plan for the city which will protect (people) from ravaging congestion, pollution, crime and higher taxes. . . . What we saw today was a council unwilling to let the city decide on a direction to make that right.”

A rare coalition of business and labor leaders, however, characterized the proposed initiative as a well-intentioned but misguided plan that would devastate San Diego’s economy at a time when it already is reeling under the effects of the recession. If adopted, they argued, the measure would dramatically curtail housing construction and business expansion, thereby driving up housing costs and reducing jobs.

“We all share the goals of the PLAN initiative, there’s no question about that,” said Lee Grissom, president of the Greater San Diego Chamber of Commerce. “The question is, how do we achieve them? This measure would have sent absolutely the wrong message to the business community.”

Council opponents, meanwhile, not only cited those concerns about the measure’s potential economic impact, but also argued that it would be improper for the council to, in essence, circumvent a local judge’s ruling declaring the initiative unconstitutional.

In his October decision, Superior Court Judge James Milliken ruled that the initiative, which would have established several new growth-control standards but also specified that construction workers be paid “prevailing wages,” violated a state constitutional mandate restricting such measures to single subjects.

Though that difficulty could have been finessed by dividing the initiative into two separate parts, some council members argued that doing so would alter “what people originally signed,” thereby undermining the initiative process, not reinforcing it, as initiative proponents claimed.

“This is a whole different animal--it’s not the original ballot proposal,” said Councilman John Hartley, who had been seen by both sides as the potential swing vote.

Calling the initiative “the wrong policies at the wrong time,” Councilman Bob Filner echoed that point, saying: “In my view, there is no initiative.”

In September, the council, unenthusiastically fulfilling a legal obligation stemming from PLAN!’s success in gaining substantially more than the 56,585 signatures needed, voted to put the measure on the June, 1992, ballot.

Milliken’s decision the following month, however, brought the issue back before the council for reconsideration, forcing supporters and opponents alike to wage one more round in their protracted battle. (In a related decision, the council decided in closed session late Monday not to appeal the judge’s ruling.)

PLAN! officials and other supporters argue that the initiative would help ensure that builders pay their fair share for public services necessitated by new development, a requirement that some building industry leaders contend is already being met.

The initiative also would have prohibited development if the growth reduced the number of police officers per capita or increased the likelihood of water shortages, water rationing or higher water rates--standards that critics complain are alternately unrealistic, unfair or Draconian in their potential economic impact.

“San Diego’s economy has always been extremely fragile,” said businessman Frank Hope. “I don’t think this is the time we should be self-inflicting another economic disaster on our community.”

Siding with opponents who noted that the nationwide economic slowdown of the 1990s has slashed the rapid growth rate seen here in the 1980s, Councilman Tom Behr described the measure as an attempt “to carry a 1980s issue . . . into the harsh realities of the 1990s.”

In addition to Filner, Hartley and Behr, Councilman Ron Roberts and Councilwoman Judy McCarty rounded out the opposition to placing the measure on the ballot. Mayor Maureen O’Connor was joined by council members Abbe Wolfsheimer, the Rev. George Stevens and Valerie Stallings in voting in favor of placing the initiative before voters.

“Don’t fear the people,” O’Connor exhorted her colleagues, arguing that the 82,000 signatures persuaded her that voters at least deserved a chance to decide the issue.

Though she expressed doubts “in my heart of hearts” that the public would approve the measure, largely because of the objections raised by opponents, the mayor added: “What you have to do is give them the right to vote either for or against it. And if you don’t, I think you will split this community.”

After the meeting, Navarro said that PLAN! leaders would decide later this week whether to again tackle the time-consuming, costly task of circulating new petitions aimed at getting the measure on the November, 1992, ballot. The earlier signature-gathering drive, effectively rendered moot by Monday’s council action, cost PLAN! $122,000.

From the beginning, opponents had speculated that Navarro was so insistent on getting the initiative on next June’s ballot in part because he hoped to use it as a platform to simultaneously run for mayor.

Asked how Monday’s decision might affect his own political future, Navarro said late Monday that the action had convinced him that “this is an old council that needs new blood.”

“Unless someone such as myself is elected the mayor in the ‘90s, we will have business as usual,” Navarro said.