A Civic Rift Appears

Airport JPA makes
sense, as does Golding
and Burnham making up

Susan Golding is agitated. Malin Burnham is agitated. They're wigglin' and squigglin' and it looks ugly. Burnham, chairman of Burnham Pacific, John Burnham & Co., First National Bank, the Burnham Institute and the former chairman of one of Golding's former campaign committees, still probably the most respected 70-year-old businessman in San Diego, Malin Burnham is ticked because, he says, it took him two months to get a meeting with the mayor.

    The mayor at first sounds apologetic and angry at her staff, but later backs off, standing by staff's explanation that Burnham did not make it clear initially that he desired a meeting with her. Burnham doesn’t change his story. A misunderstanding is possible.

    Burnham, who's created his own ad hoc committee to push for creation of a joint powers authority that would plan, develop and possibly operate a new regional airport, is hot to trot on this most intractable challenge before San Diego. This at a time when the public, if it’s focused at all on the subject, probably does not want to hear that the $238.5 million expansion of Lindbergh Field, nearing completion, is a mere short-term improvement.

    Burnham has a second agenda. There's been modest attention to both of Burnham's agendas in Neil Morgan's Union-Tribune column, but they haven't really sparked the public's synapses, yet. But Burnham's nerves are sparking and the mayor's are charged, and both are getting a little frayed as Bruce Henderson, Rich Rider and The Reader's Coronado millionaire owner, Jim Holman, bask in the peculiar limelight they've created. Or maybe they're glowing in a populist fire they've ignited.

    Burnham's second agenda is no less than persuading the mayor to back out of her U.S. Senate race until nearly all of San Diego’s major challenges are resolved or are approaching resolution. He keeps refining his reasons why she should bow out of the race, which, he says, is why he doesn’t want the reasons quoted verbatim and because he isn’t sure he wants to pursue the second agenda. Just the existence of Burnham's second agenda may help persuade the mayor of the merits of an airport JPA, his primary concern. This is hardball leadership, which Burnham and Golding can practice aggressively. The danger, of course, is that if Burnham decides to wage a very public campaign against the mayor's U.S. Senate race and the mayor does not roll over, San Diegans will be torn. And then the influence of those "few obstructionists," as Golding and Burnham camps both view them, will grow even more vexing. No doubt such a rift would help Golding's Senate campaign opponents, too.

    Following is a paraphrase of Burnham's evolving reasons for her to quit the race or quit the mayor's office, borne out of affection for both San Diego and Golding, but with the acknowledgment of a higher duty to San Diego. At first glance, you may find the list compelling. But then as we peel the mayor off the ceiling, giving her a chance to respond, you may appreciate why Burnham may come around, cutting her another check to finance another campaign, while rallying around a very determined leader to help get done what needs to get done in San Diego. Maybe not.

1. A small group of rabblerousers - notably Rider, Henderson, and The Reader's owner, Holman - are running roughshod over public officials and will continue to do so as long as most of the officials defer to the mayor, as she prefers, despite her absence.

2. Case in point, the Chargers ticket guarantee controversy isn’t going away because the merits of the deal aren’t being explained by a determined mayor at every public forum.

3. A new San Francisco Giants ballpark was approved by voters only after repeated defeats and after Mayor Willie Brown stumped for the project daily. Think voters will approve a Padres park in 1998 if she's campaigning for Senate?

4. An Imperial Valley source of conserved water is available to San Diego only if local officials close ranks around their most persuasive leader who can conclude the deal.

5. San Diego’s infrastructure of sewer, water and roadways are crumbling sufficiently to require the mayor's high-priority attention.

6. The San Diego mayor could nail Rep. Duncan Hunter better than anyone for blocking the upgrade of the eastward leg of the San Diego & Imperial Valley rail line. The rail line has to happen. Another U.S. Senator from San Diego doesn’t.

7. If half the energy spent on running for the Senate were redirected to improving civic, commercial and social ties with Tijuana, San Diegans would be better served.

8. Two in one: The convention center is stalled and only the mayor can persuade Rob Wellington Quigley that a grand library design will be built much less expensively. (Burnham's worries were conceived prior to the City Council's Nov. 25 vote affirming a new financing plan for the convention center expansion.)

9. No, no. A task force reporting to a San Diego mayor on the future of a regional airport is not good enough, especially when she's campaigning in Redding. A broad-based joint powers authority has a lot better chance of getting the job done.

10. Don't you think the new city manager would benefit from a year’s worth of her less-divided attention?

    And the mayor responds, not entirely point by point because the conversation wandered, but you'll catch the drift:

    "I don’t know what he's talking about with this absence stuff. I’m running this city and I’m on top of every issue. I’ve not missed a council meeting, where these issues are debated and decided. The fact that Richard Rider and Bruce Henderson are running roughshod over public officials, this is a democracy and we don’t control them. We can’t determine what the news media write.

    "I made very strong statements why this (convention center expansion) is important to San Diego. I’m the one who came up with the non-appropriation lease with the Port of San Diego so we didn’t have to wait for the court to make an ultimate decision (on the original financing method). That took months of negotiation and that doesn’t happen without paying attention. The fact is the convention center is going forward. If there's a referendum, we’ll ask the voters to approve it. But there is a democracy here. Rich Rider and Bruce Henderson are using what tools they have.

    "I should point out, if anybody has explained the Chargers ticket guarantee until she's blue in the face, it’s me. I don’t control the media or what people say about it. It has been explained so many times, it’s hard to count. Perhaps Malin wasn’t at any of those forums.

    "We don’t have a proposal for a (baseball) ballpark. If we come up with a good proposal, I intend to tell the voters it’s something we ought to approve.

    "On Imperial Valley water, I’ve been extremely involved. (Los Angeles Mayor) Dick Riordan and I are talking about it. I have a lot of respect for Malin, but he ought to find out what’s going on. (Rallying around a good leader) is why I reappointed Mike Madigan to the County Water Authority. The water authority is working together well. I talk to Mike Madigan on a regular basis.

    "On infrastructure crumbling: Since I was elected mayor, we’ve issued $850 million in sewer revenue bonds, an $850 million retrofit of the sewer systems, one of the most massive undertakings in San Diego history. We’ve approved $770 million in water bonds, also a massive effort, after I appointed a citizens review panel on water structure. As soon as they made their recommendation it went to council, well, almost as soon. We’ve had the courage when necessary to raise rates, to repair this infrastructure. When I was elected, there had been (in recent years) no effort made to repair infrastructure. In fact there was a refusal to do so.

    "On roads, we have increased expenditures on street repair, resealing, slurry sealing, by substantial amounts since I’ve been in office, and we have finished a negotiation with the state for the widening of Otay Mesa Road, absolutely critical for international infrastructure, and we’ve put together funding for 905 and Highway 56. Considering all these things we done during a recession, there are very few mayors if any who could talk about this kind of investment in infrastructure during their terms of office. Not only have these problems not been ignored, but they've been given real action. These projects take a long time to do.

    "I’m well aware of the Imperial Valley rail line. I’ve supported it for many years. But if I worked 36 hours a day, there's only so much you can do. That project is moving forward. I met with the secretary of transportation of Mexico, reached agreement with him. Malin's not aware of that, but he never asks.

    "I spend probably more energy than anyone ever has, except for maybe Pete Wilson, on San Diego civic affairs. Malin has been absent from civic affairs. Perhaps he doesn’t know how we meet on a quarterly and biannual basis (with Tijuana leaders) and we are cooperating and working together more than ever before in our history.

    "Any politician who wants to wade into border issues ought to talk with Mayor Golding. I have extraordinarily fine relations with mayors' offices. Our police forces work together. Malin should find out what’s going on.

    A $78 million stadium expansion pales when you look at the amount of money and investment that has gone into San Diego infrastructure since I was elected and he probably doesn’t know about it. But then he didn’t ask.

    "I have talked with Duncan Hunter (about the Imperial Valley rail line). I didn’t ream him. I just disagreed with him. Duncan has concerns about crime. It doesn’t matter to Duncan (about economic benefit). I’ve given him information about what that leg can do economically. He thinks there will be crime and is not willing to take the chance. I would say the real reason this line is blocked is because of the (strained) relationships between members of our (congressional) delegation. In spite of that, efforts are still moving forward to make this thing happen. But it does not happen overnight.

    "I’ve been arguing for the rail line since I was a member of the council and Don Nay said it was a foolish thing to do."

    So, isn’t she spending a lot of time out of town on campaign business?

    "Yeah, somewhat," the mayor responds. "It varies from week to week, a lot of it’s on weekends and evenings. The real question is, am I spending the amount of time necessary to run the city? No question about. it. I can conduct the city by phone and laptop. If I’m in Washington on city business, I’m still running the city. At the moment, you better be glad I’m running the city. We just went through a selection of a new city manager which we completed very efficiently, and most people would say effectively, and in record time, considering we went out of town to find the candidate. You cannot search for a manager, have double the council meetings and not be paying attention to city business.

    "I work more that 40 hours a week for the city, no question about it. I may have cut it from 90 to 60 in order to campaign, but I work more than 40 hours a week for the city of San Diego.

    "I don’t have a personal life, so if I choose to spend some of my private time campaigning, that’s my choice. I’ve spent more time being mayor than any mayor since Pete Wilson."

    Her relationship is a disaster with The Reader, whose owner financed Rich Rider and Bruce Henderson's signature-gathering campaign against the stadium expansion and reportedly intends to do likewise against the convention center. But the Union-Tribune staff, too, seems to have discovered a new-found freedom to play up Henderson's activity and play down her own. What does she think of the U-T's coverage?

    "I think the newspaper is giving him tremendous coverage, beyond what they would ever give me. They consider that news and they like to do that.

    "Can I rephrase that? The daily newspaper has given Bruce Henderson in particular considerable coverage, to the point of printing an article that called him the toast of the town. When I won re-election of this office with the largest margin in the history of this city, the largest margin of any mayoral election in the state of California, with five opponents, I was on the bottom of the page with the county Board of Education races on top. The county Board of Eduction. I couldn’t believe it. The San Diego Union-Tribune certainly covers the mayor and council. But there is no question that front-page stories, day after day, on Bruce Henderson do raise the level of the debate. But that is their choice."

    She says her relationship with U-T Editor Karin Winner is "good" and likewise with Publisher Helen Copley. How her relationships with U-T personnel differ from her predecessor's - Maureen O'Connor was remarkably close with several U-T executives and journalists - Golding says, "I can’t comment...

    "I don’t think I’ve been getting bad treatment from the U-T, pretty much the same since I’ve been in office, sometimes good and sometimes bad."

    Golding is irritated with Burnham's insistence that she, who claims she spends 60 hours a week on City Hall business, should spend even more time on San Diego affairs, getting more involved, while he also insists that a joint powers authority (JPA) to develop a new airport should be "free of politics" with only appointed, non-elected representatives of the city, county, port and Sandag. She prefers a more broad-based task force. He says a task force will lack muscle, while a JPA can be created with taxing and governing authority to get the job done.

    Neil Morgan, who's written about airport planning for 50 years, says Burnham's probably right. She says she’ll speak with council members about it.

    If the rift between Golding and Burnham widens, too bad, for San Diego and for anyone who thinks a U.S. Senator from San Diego is better for San Diego than a politician from elsewhere. If the rift closes, call what just happened creative tension.