Del Mar, S.D. Meet, Discuss San Dieguito Valley Future

The tiny city of Del Mar, smallest in the county, last week made so bold as to lecture the mighty city of San Diego, the county’s largest, on how to run its affairs. The reaction was as predictable as the reflex swatting of a pesky fly.

San Diego Councilman Ed Struiksma put it as delicately as he could as he summed up the bigger city’s response to Del Mar’s complaints and recommendations on what the village of 5,000 souls considers the high-handed actions of the Del Mar Fair Board, keeper of the state-owned Del Mar Fairgrounds and Race Track.

Struiksma spoke of “fairness” and “equity” in dealing with the traffic and congestion problems that Del Mar is trying to avoid.

And he promised that the San Diego City Council will “weigh the concerns of Del Mar along with the concerns of hundreds of thousands of others.”

That was a polite way of saying that San Diego--which is roughly 200 times the size of Del Mar--will give Del Mar’s views a fair fraction of consideration when making decisions on the San Dieguito River valley that lies within the boundaries of both cities.

The meeting of the two city councils, held on the relatively neutral turf of the UC San Diego campus in La Jolla, was the first time the two city councils have formally met. But that does not mean that the two cities’ officials don’t meet. In the legal arena, at social affairs, in legislative battles and at least once in athletic competition--the North City West Run-Around--San Diego and Del Mar officials have swapped words and actions, usually taking opposite points of view.

San Diego Mayor Maureen O’Connor opened Tuesday night’s joint council meeting at Mandell Weiss Theatre with praise for Del Mar’s environmentalist leanings and called the session “long overdue.” Del Mar Mayor Lew Hopkins responded in kind, pointing out that the two communities had many interests in common, including a boundary. San Diego’s city limits constitute 80% of Del Mar’s land boundaries.

Hopkins may have mentioned this statistic simply for its geographical interest, but beneath that fact lies a history of friction and bursts of open hostility between the two cities.

Del Mar was incorporated in 1959, primarily because of an annexation move by San Diego that threatened to surround the smaller city and snatch the Del Mar Fairgrounds, along with its rich tax revenues.

More recently, the cities have clashed over construction of North City West, a 50,000-resident planned community in San Diego, across the freeway from Del Mar. Del Mar fought bitterly to halt creation of the nearby community, which was to be 10 times its size, protesting that San Diego had no right to allow development 20 miles from the city’s center, leapfrogging vacant land and creating urban sprawl.

The most recent blister raised by the cross-purposes of the two governments involves the San Dieguito River Valley where Del Mar-San Diego city boundaries meet along a north-south line crossing the valley west of Interstate 5.

In that border area, which Del Mar Mayor Hopkins labels “a no man’s land,” the valley narrows into a wedge containing the state fairgrounds and race track and the San Dieguito Lagoon--two incompatible neighbors. Fair directors want to extend their domain into the wetlands of the coastal lagoon, to build off- and on-ramps from Interstate 5 into the fairground parking lots and to spend about $100 million expanding its facilities to meet the crowds which are expected by the year 2000.

To Del Mar Councilman Scott Barnett, the evening was a satisfying one. “We held the San Diego City Council captive for three hours. We informed them fully about the issues that upset us,” Barnett said, citing the intrusion into the sensitive coastal lagoon and river path. “Although these issues are important to us, they are issues that will be decided by them. Now, I believe that they have a better understanding of Del Mar’s concerns. I think they (San Diego City Council members) now understand the close interrelationship of the affairs of the three of us--Del Mar, San Diego and the Fair Board.”

A fair official, who asked that his name not be used, saw the joint council session differently. “Del Mar likes to push us around and, when we push back, they call in the ‘big brother’--San Diego--to fight the battle for them. This time it didn’t work. Big brother was on our side.”

The 175 or so in the audience left the lengthy session with mixed emotions. One man stalked out early, mumbling that, “I didn’t come here to hear a lecture.”

San Diego Councilman Struiksma applauded Del Mar for calling the meeting to air grievances and to ask San Diego leaders to protect the small coastal city from the urban woes of congestion and traffic that development will bring. But he didn’t promise to follow Del Mar’s advice.

“They can do, and do do, exactly what they please within their own boundaries,” Struiksma said of the Del Mar council members. “I can understand that. Del Mar is a beautiful little community, and I can understand why they want to protect it. But, outside of Del Mar, there are hundreds of thousands of people who also have to be considered. I have a responsibility to consider their thoughts and wishes, too.”