Push Coming to Shove as Council, Mayor Bicker Over Cuts

The political game of “chicken” between San Diego Mayor Maureen O’Connor and the City Council escalated Friday when Councilman Ron Roberts asked the mayor to relinquish control over two key city agencies rather than eliminate them to save money.

In a memo to the mayor, Roberts said O’Connor’s proposal to slash the city’s three-member binational affairs office and eight-person Intergovernmental Relations Department from her budget shows that she no longer considers the agencies “top priorities” and should give them up.

The agencies were transferred to O’Connor’s office in 1987 and 1988.

Roberts said the binational affairs office, which coordinates relations with Mexico, should be returned to City Manager John Lockwood’s control, and intergovernmental relations, which coordinates city lobbying in Sacramento and Washington, should be transferred to the City Council.

He called on O’Connor to schedule a council discussion of the matter by April 23. But O’Connor spokesman Paul Downey said the mayor has no plans to debate the future of the departments before the city’s annual budget review in May and June, and would stand by her intention to eliminate the departments, along with the two-member Downtown Marketing Consortium and two arts staffers.

O’Connor proposed the $1-million staff cuts Monday, challenging the eight City Council members to collectively match them dollar for dollar. O’Connor’s critics accused her of political gamesmanship, many saying that they were not willing to cut badly needed staff members.

The political infighting comes as the city prepares to confront its most serious budget crisis in years, an estimated $60-million shortfall for fiscal 1991, which begins July 1.

Friday, Downey said the mayor is likely to make some unilateral cuts regardless of whether the council takes up her challenge, but he said no specific decisions have been made. Some of the intergovernmental relations and binational affairs staff will be absorbed into vacancies and continue their functions, but others in the mayor’s office--including O’Connor herself--will have to “pick up the slack,” Downey said.

Downtown Marketing Consortium and arts staffers already have been absorbed into vacancies in the mayor’s office, he said, and the Intergovernmental Relations Department staff will soon be down to six because of voluntary departures.

“Right now, the council is not showing much courage. They’re hiding behind this veil of ‘we’re district-only, so that means we need more staff, not less staff,’ ” Downey said, referring to the new system of electing council members solely within their own districts, instead of citywide. “It just doesn’t wash with the public. I think sometimes they underestimate the intelligence of the public.”

Roberts and O’Connor, once the closest of allies, also argued over an assertion in Roberts’ memo that O’Connor would unilaterally lay off the staffers May 1. Downey said that staffers were warned at a meeting Friday that budget cuts would come in early May to save money for next fiscal year but said specific layoffs have not yet been determined.

Roberts does not appear to be alone in his reluctance to eliminate the Intergovernmental Relations Department. Councilmen Bob Filner and John Hartley said the mayor acted, in part, because she knew that some council members were planning to take the department away from her. Hartley said Friday that he would be willing to support Roberts’ attempt to wrest control of the departments from the mayor.

“The city is going to be the loser if things don’t get squared away,” Roberts said. “At the risk of looking like the big spender down here, we’re not going to sit idly by and watch this city get gutted.”