San Diego Voters Are Asked to Give Mayor More Power

A group of San Diego civic leaders hopes the city’s deepening pension deficit will persuade voters to do what they have always resisted: Give the mayor more power.

“It’s time San Diego came into the 21st century,” retired Marine Brig. Gen. Michael Neil, a local attorney, said at a news conference Wednesday outside City Hall.

“We’re not a sleepy little city any longer,” he added.

Under a city charter adopted in 1931 after a series of political scandals, the mayor has virtually none of the power wielded by many big-city mayors. Most of that power is given to the city manager, a staff member hired by the City Council.

The mayor is merely a member of the City Council, with no veto or budgetary power, or authority to hire and fire department heads.

Opponents of Proposition F on the Nov. 2 ballot say that it would return San Diego to the way the city was run for decades, when a small group of men could meet for lunch at the U.S. Grant Hotel across from City Hall and make decisions.

“The mayor is going to become invisible and become part of the downtown power establishment,” said Councilman Ralph Inzunza.

Numerous attempts to amend the City Charter to increase the clout of the mayor have been unsuccessful. Even Pete Wilson, the most influential mayor in city history, failed to get public approval to scrap the “strong manager-weak mayor” system.

“There’s always been a populist, anti-government streak in San Diego’s civic DNA,” said Steve Erie, political science professor at UC San Diego. “We love the government when it’s called the U.S. military but are always suspicious of local government.”

But boosters of a “strong-mayor” system say that the pension controversy -- the city is struggling with a deficit of nearly $2 billion in its pension fund -- will prove a boon to Proposition F.

“Under the strong-mayor, strong-council form of government, this pension scandal would not have happened,” said Andy Berg, an official with the National Electrical Contractors Assn. and co-chairman of the group sponsoring Proposition F.

In its scalding analysis of how the city got so far into debt, a Washington law firm hired by the council placed much of the blame on inattentiveness on the part of City Manager Michael Uberuaga, who was hired in 1997.

Under the City Charter, the manager functions as the chief executive and has responsibility for preparing an annual budget and alerting the mayor and the council to brewing fiscal problems.

Amid an investigation into the pension woes by the U.S. attorney and the Securities and Exchange Commission, Uberuaga was forced from office by Mayor Dick Murphy.

Proposition F would remove the mayor from the council but give him veto power and responsibility for proposing an annual budget. The mayor, in effect, would become the city’s chief executive, with authority to fire the city manager.

The ballot measure is far from a slam-dunk. Polls done for the mayor’s race suggest the pension problem has yet to gain the attention of voters.

Also, detractors say, the strong-mayor system would sap power from neighborhood groups and make it easy for developers and others to get their way at City Hall by pressuring one person rather than trying to convince nine council members.

“This [Proposition F] takes the voice of citizens and neighborhoods away,” said Councilwoman Toni Atkins.

Murphy and county Supervisor Ron Roberts, his reelection opponent, endorse Proposition F, although neither has made it a centerpiece of his campaign.

If passed by a simple majority, Proposition F would give the strong-mayor system a five-year trial, starting in 2006. By 2011, the measure would be returned to voters.

At Wednesday’s news conference, Proposition F backers sounded a theme tailored to the voters in this region with more military bases than any in the country: Like a military unit, a city needs a strong leader.

“I can tell you that when I was commanding general of Camp Pendleton, we definitely had a strong mayor [on base], and we got things done,” Neil said.