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By Donald H. Harrison
 SAN DIEGO—Gray Davis still was California’s governor in 2002 when three-term legislator Howard Wayne, returned to his old job as an assistant state attorney general in San Diego, where he typically handled appeals cases.
Wayne, precluded by the state’s term-limit law from running for reelection, had considered making a bid to be city attorney of San Diego but decided against it after making a realistic assessment of the political support Michael Aguirre had then enjoyed. Though he sat out the race, he retained a keen interest in the affairs of the City of San Diego. Now, he has decided to run for the City Council seat that Donna Frye will vacate at the end of 2010. Under the term- limits law, Frye is ineligible to seek reelection. She has endorsed her chief of staff, Steven Hadley, to succeed her. Aguirre also is backing Hadley.
However, Wayne has garnered some important ones endorsements as well—among them the president pro tempore of the state Senate Darrel Steinberg; two incumbent members of the City Council, Marti Emerald and Ben Hueso; past City Council members Scott Peters and Toni Atkins; and such past and present members of the San Diego legislative delegation as Chris Kehoe, Dede Alpert, Marty Block and Mary Salas.
Of interest to the Jewish community, Steinberg, Emerald, Block as well as Wayne himself all are Jewish community members.
It’s anyone’s guess how important these endorsements are—some would say their importance is in inverse proportion to how well known the candidate is. If the candidate is so well known that voters have an opinion of him or her, it’s possible the voters will make up their minds independently of the endorsements. On the other hand, if a candidate is unknown to a voter, then the voter may look to see “who’s backing him” and make a decision on that basis.
“Experience” also is a factor that Wayne believes will work in his favor—provided enough voters can be made aware of it. During a recent interview, Wayne explained it this way:
“On December 1, 2010 (when new members of the City Council are sworn in), there will be only two council members with more than two years of experience on the council. We are lumbering toward a mayor-council form of government for San Diego. We haven’t had experience with an elected executive before; and there is not anybody on the council with legal training.
“You need somebody there with experience,” Wayne continued. “I have been in San Diego since I am 5; I have watched the city develop, and I have more legal experience than you can shake a stick at. I am in a position to question the city attorney’s representative when we are in closed session and there is nobody else there. I have years of experience in public office. I know how to put coalitions together, and I know how to work with an elected executive because I had to work with two governors (Republican Pete Wilson and Democrat Gray Davis.).”
In a previous column, I reported upon Wayne’s concern about San Diego’s crumbling infrastructure, a problem he calls a “ticking time bomb.” Coalition-building is what he says will be necessary to map an effective plan to replace broken down sewer lines—an issue of particular concern in older areas of the city, including some in the district Wayne seeks to represent. Council District 6 includes the communities of Clairemont (where Wayne lives); De Anza Cove, Kearny Mesa; Linda Vista; Mission Valley and Serra Mesa.
Besides fixing the infrastructure, Wayne says the city needs to develop a plan to increase its wealth by attracting industries offering high-paying jobs to San Diego. He suggested that San Diego could learn from something that Long Beach did recently.
That city, he noted, lost much of its U.S. Navy presence to San Diego in the Pentagon process of Base Realignment and
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Closure (BRAC). When naval personnel and equipment transfers were announced from Long Beach to San Diego, said Wayne, Long Beach took it very hard. But in the cloud was a silver lining; city leaders got together and brainstormed about possibilities for the future. Now the mayor and council are anticipating building for the nearby film community of Hollywood a million-square-foot sound stage, with the idea of attracting film-makers (and their casts and crews) to Long Beach on a year-round basis.
“That’s not the typical thing you think of when you think of building things, but it is something that sells,” said Wayne. “We have to find our niche here in San Diego. What can we do here to encourage high paying or good paying jobs to come to San Diego?”
Currently, the city’s “tax structure is messed up in the sense that it provides tax incentives to build structures (such as retail stores) designed to produce sales tax, which produces (for the city) one cent on the dollar,” Wayne said. “What really builds wealth is not just a bunch of low-wage commercial enterprises; it is high-paying jobs.”
Like Qualcomm? I ventured.
“Those type of things ought to be the model,” he responded. “I think Qualcomm is of a type I’d like to see a lot more.” What other kinds of high tech might be sought? I asked “I’m not certain,” he said. “I once thought that biotech might be the answer but it is too dependent on venture capital. We have to find out what works well.”
Whatever it is, he said, “we are not going to build smokestacks, or steel plants; that is not going to happen. One of the great things that we have going for San Diego is a great educational system, starting with UCSD, and the state colleges and the community college systems.”
“Smokestacks” was a San Diego historical reference. In the early 20th century, as city leaders pondered similar questions about the city’s future, there was a debate that became known as “smokestacks versus geraniums.” Supposedly favoring the former were those who said San Diego should do everything it could to attract basic industries, to become a city like those in the East and Midwest, famous for their manufactures. The “geranium” camp said San Diego must be preserved as a place of beauty, and limit its search to industries that fit in with its lifestyle.
Many of San Diego's industries, including Qualcomm, were spun off from research originally conducted at UCSD and other institutions of higher learning.
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