Council Pulls Back 2 Ballot Initiatives

The San Diego City Council on Tuesday reversed its previous decisions to place two initiatives on the November ballot that would have cost city residents money.

The reversal came in the midst of a severe budget crisis and on a day when the County Board of Supervisors agreed to place a half-cent sales tax increase on the ballot for law enforcement and criminal justice funding.

One measure the council killed Tuesday, which called for a trash collection fee, would have funded more police officers for San Diego streets.

“The next mayor can try to tax trash. I’m not going to,” Mayor Maureen O’Connor said.

The so-called trash tax would have meant collection fees for about 300,000 homeowners, or about half the residents in the city. It would not have applied to renters, condominium dwellers or businesses, who already pay for pickup through other means.

Last week, the council voted 5 to 2 to put the measure to voters in November, but only after it was refurbished. Voters would have been told that $26 million from the trash fund would go straight to the Police Department. The poor and elderly would have received discounts.

The council took up the measure again Tuesday with only minutes of the meeting left, and changed its position with a 5-3 vote on a new motion to keep it off the ballot.

Councilmen Ron Roberts, John Hartley and Tom Behr voted against that motion.

“I was pretty stunned. I thought we had the votes. I think getting more police was extremely important,” Hartley said.

“The police can’t even begin to answer the calls that are out there now,” Roberts said.

Hartley said the Board of Supervisors’ move to place a half-cent sales tax on the November ballot “might have been a concern.” Twenty-five percent of those potential revenues are earmarked for cities.

The council’s reversal was a repeat of a flip-flop earlier this year. In February, the council voted 5 to 4 to put a similar measure on the June ballot. After two weeks the measure was taken off by a 5-4 vote.

The council also decided Tuesday, in a 6-2 vote, not to place a bond issue for libraries on the ballot, reversing last week’s unanimous vote to do so.

Councilwoman Judy McCarty, who came out in strong support of the library issue last week, said that after reconsidering the dire economic times, she wanted to take the measure off the ballot. “I’m moving to withdraw consideration of that, with great reluctance,” she said.

While O’Connor agreed that plans for 21 branch libraries throughout the city could be delayed until the economy improves, a new central library on Lane Field--which O’Connor has pushed for--could still possibly be financed with the help of funds from the San Diego Unified Port District and private sources.

Without money allotted for the Lane Field library, the bond measure would have totaled $78.5 million, or $190 million over 30 years.

“I can’t do it,” Councilman George Stevens said after hearing the figures. “The reality is, if it even passed, I don’t see how we’re going to take care of the libraries once we build (them).” The bond measure would have paid for construction and improvements, not books, shelves or furniture.

A handful of community members urged the council to keep its word from last week and let voters decide the issue in November.

“It’s got to go on the ballot,” Evelyn Moore of Friends of the Library said. “The school bonds won, so maybe it will win. Your decision to put the library issue on the ballot was a good one. Don’t change your vote.”

Both measures would have required a two-thirds vote to pass in November.

Another potential November ballot measure, which would move City Council elections from odd- to even-numbered years to coincide with mayoral, state and national elections, was left undecided Tuesday.

The consolidation of the elections would save the city an estimated $700,000 to $1 million every four years, and would also likely mean higher voter turnout for City Council elections. A motion to put it on the ballot passed by a 5-2 vote. But Harry Mathis, a former unsuccessful candidate for City Council and a likely opponent of Councilwoman Abbe Wolfsheimer in 1993, tipped the council off to a potential problem with the even-year system.

Half the City Council would come up for reelection at the time of each mayoral race. Those members would have to give up their seats if they chose to run for mayor. The other council members--still in mid-term--would not.

“Then I’ll reconsider my vote on the even-year motion. Now you don’t have five votes,” O’Connor responded. The council will take the issue up again next week.