Proposed New City Hall a Shouting Issue in Del Mar : Balloting: But then, what isn’t? Voters today will decide yet another acrimonious debate in the coastal city.

If you believe that Del Mar and political squabbling go together like Ozzie and Harriet, then check out this episode:

Today, voters in the North County coastal city will weigh the merits of a ballot measure to build a $6.5-million community center--which includes a new City Hall and town meeting space, library and underground parking garage--smack in the heart of town.

The much-talked-about project, advocates say, is as simple as reading cue cards--accomplished by floating a $4.5-million bond issue to be repaid over 30 years from the city’s general fund, without raising property taxes one penny.

Call them stupid, opponents counter, but they’re not convinced that entering into a 30-year mortgage in the midst of a recession is such a wise idea. And in a city that’s losing residents--not gaining them--why is a new City Hall necessary in the first place?

As they have so often since the city incorporated 33 years ago, Del Mar’s opposing political machines have heated up to a fever pitch. Both sides have accused the other of misleading the public.

There is one thing, however, that both sides seem to agree on: Take no prisoners.

“We fight about everything in Del Mar--period,” said Mayor Jacqueline Winterer, one of the main proponents of the new City Hall complex. “You put motherhood and apple pie on this ballot, we’d fight about that.

“In Del Mar, we put an interesting twist on our political arguments,” she said. “It’s called the squabble.”

Winterer says those opposing the center have not fought a fair fight.

“The people opposed to this project have just run a very negative campaign,” she said. “They didn’t attack me, but they attacked the project by making some hellacious arguments.”

Another proponent, who asked not to be named, added, “They have lied, plain and simple.”

Lew Hopkins, a Del Mar activist who was mayor in the mid-1980s and is a bond election opponent, said the issue will be contested down to the very last vote.

“They’ve fought a good fight,” he said. “It’s been a good war. But I think there’s been a little trampling on fairness. It’s the pattern of elections here. They start out with moderation and escalate into half-truths.

“I mean, I’ve seen all their flyers, and they’re so carefully worded,” Hopkins said. “There’s an element of truth there. But that’s about it.”

For weeks, election flyers have flown about town like a wind storm in a Xerox factory. Some were delivered door-to-door. Others were handed out to passers-by on the street. Each carries a fresh argument or slant, some new interpretation of the money figures involved.

Volunteers from both sides have manned the telephones, trying to reach each of the city’s 3,000 voters--begging, persuading and arguing for their vote.

Recently, local newspapers have been filled with letters taking one well-heated stand or another on the community center project.

Opponents have used words such as heinous and sham to describe the move to get the new center built. In a return volley, the other side has written that the bad-mouthers have never seen a community project they liked, that they’d rather see commercial construction rather than civic development.

If they could, project proponents say, the nay-sayers would rather sell Del Mar’s soul.

At center stage, both sides say, is the scope of the project.

Hopkins, the former mayor, says the whole idea started with the desire to build a new library, which for decades has been housed in a trailer outside City Hall.

But as plans for the project wore on, the library segment of the new center suddenly lost out to funding for the City Hall and meeting portions.

“As time progressed, the library impetus was set aside,” Hopkins said, “so the (pro-City Hall) people could meet the funding for their center. And if the library isn’t part of the picture, then these people will be spending $4.5 million on a City Hall that’s not needed.”

“It’s just a matter of desire versus need,” he said. “They desire the hall. But they don’t need it.”

Opponents say that, by the end of the 30-year mortgage, when the city pays back its debt, the project will have cost more than $10 million.

Said one newspaper letter-writer: “Employees of any organization will always push for having luxurious offices and facilities, but we should not allow ourselves to be misled by this City Council or the 49-person city staff into incurring a multimillion-dollar debt just so they can have plush surroundings!”

Winterer, however, said it’s just not true that project proponents have pushed the library issue aside. The library portion of the $6.5-million package, she says, will run about $2.4 million. The city will add $900,000 to an expected $1.5 million in donations to be collected by a group called Friends of the Del Mar Library.

“To accuse us of not having money for the library when we have money for it . . . is just another big, fat lie,” she said.

Controversy has hounded the project since the beginning.

Two years ago, the City Council voted to pay $800,000 to internationally acclaimed New York architect Robert A. M. Stern, along with a local architectural firm, to co-design the 29,000-square-foot complex on Camino del Mar, between 10th and 11th streets.

Opponents say a West Coast architect should have been chosen, and that Stern’s fees were more than double the normal rate.

Stern has visited the city on several occasions to unveil his master plan showing a low-lying brick-and-stucco center, which would replace the 1956-era school building that currently houses City Hall.

It would include the library, meeting spaces and a 63-spot underground parking garage.

Several residents opposed to the new center say the precarious bond package will not only “wreck the city’s budget” but also take money away from much-needed public improvements.

One letter-writer took note of the decaying streets and sidewalks around town.

“You want more disgrace?” she wrote. “What about the horribly yucky ‘rent-a-cans’ . . . and the one bathroom the city provides at 15th Street for the thousands of beach-goers coming here each summer.

“Let’s spend money on upgrading what we already have rather than trying to impress people with a fancy new City Hall that primarily benefits an overblown staff.”

But the project has had its letter-writing supporters as well.

“If not now, then when,” one wrote. “The doom-criers said we couldn’t afford a community center in 1974, and they say we can’t afford it now. Is it reasonable to suppose it will be more affordable in 2000 or 2015?”

The writer then described the “old, ugly schoolhouse crammed with makeshift offices,” the portable library with indoor-outdoor restrooms and the potholed parking lot. “These features may be adequate in Buttonwillow or Podunk, but do they fit your image of Del Mar? Not mine.”