CALIFORNIA ELECTIONS : Golding Elected San Diego Mayor by Slim Margin

San Diego County Supervisor Susan Golding eked out a narrow victory over managed-growth advocate Peter Navarro to win election as mayor of California’s second-largest city.

Golding, who will replace retiring six-year Mayor Maureen O’Connor, forged ahead Wednesday by a 52%-48% margin with all precincts reporting.

About 94,000 absentee ballots remained to be counted today throughout San Diego County, but Navarro begrudgingly conceded defeat after admitting he was unlikely to make up Golding’s nearly 14,000-vote lead.

Elsewhere in California, the final results of several hotly contested referendums were far more one-sided. In the San Joaquin Valley and Marin County, voters overwhelmingly rejected farmland preservation measures. Santa Cruz County residents resoundingly favored an advisory measure calling for medicinal uses of marijuana.

And in San Francisco, voters easily approved Mayor Frank Jordan’s crackdown on panhandlers who act too aggressively when seeking handouts.

At a San Diego news conference Wednesday afternoon, Golding--flanked by all eight members of the San Diego City Council and colleagues on the Board of Supervisors--vowed to help forge strong ties between the city and county elective bodies.

Golding, a two-term supervisor who also served briefly on the San Diego City Council and in Gov. George Deukmejian’s Administration, had campaigned as the candidate of experience. Backed by the city’s business and civic establishment, she called for an inner-city “Marshall Plan” to provide financing for new businesses and loans for first-time home buyers.

“Voters felt that I was the right person to address the business and economic problems . . . and that my record has shown that I can produce that,” the 47-year-old Republican declared.

At a separate news conference, Navarro--a 43-year-old UC Irvine economics professor--pledged to help heal the city after a bruising campaign marred by a flurry of negative advertising from both sides.

But Navarro, who rose to prominence as the head of a citizen-run managed-growth group called Prevent Los Angelization Now!, also fired off several final rhetorical salvos at Golding. “The truth fought the lies,” he said, “and the lies won.”

In fertile Stanislaus County, where heavy turnout was reported, voters defeated the agricultural land use initiative--designed to declare 40% of the county’s open land off limits to developers--by a 2-to-1 margin.

“I think what it came down to is we built a strong coalition of farmers, labor and business,” said Paul Van Konynenburg, vice chairman of the Family Farm Alliance, an organization formed to fight the initiative. “People looked and asked, ‘Do we need to have this kind of restriction in a time of recession?’ And the answer was no.”

Measure F would have forbid county supervisors from changing zoning on 40,000 acres of prime farmland for 20 years. Farmers who wanted to subdivide during the two-decade period would have needed a vote of the electorate or an official declaration that the land was unsuitable for agriculture.

Proponents had contended that the measure was needed to discourage replacement of orchards and farms with tract developments and golf courses. But Modesto walnut and almond farmer Cy Young, a leader of the anti-F forces, predicted Wednesday that the vote will result in no major shifts in the county’s land use.

“The farmers love the land, and we are going to keep it in farming,” Young said. “We just wanted to be the ones protecting it--not someone who has never put their feet on a good piece of land.”

A similar preservation measure in Marin County failed by a 63%-37% margin.

Voters in Santa Clara, Barstow, Sand City and National City rejected legalized poker as a means to boost recession-battered municipal budgets.

The Santa Clara card club proposal, in which Bell Gardens Bicycle Club entrepreneur George Hardie spent nearly $200,000--a local campaign record--failed by a 59%-41% margin.

In nearby Santa Cruz County, voters approved by a whopping 77%-23% margin an advisory initiative directing local authorities to support the use of marijuana for medicinal purposes.

San Francisco voters more narrowly approved Proposition J, which subjects aggressive panhandlers to fines up to $500 or six months in jail. The measure, backed by Jordan, was approved by a 55%-45% margin.

Though San Franciscans were not taking kindly to rude people seeking change, they were looking with favor toward female candidates in the Year of the Woman.

Four women--two incumbents and two newcomers--were elected to the 11-member San Francisco Board of Supervisors, increasing the number of female board members to seven.

Feldman reported from Los Angeles; Horstman from San Diego.