Governor, at Last, Agrees to See Mayor

More than three months after she sought a face-to-face meeting, San Diego Mayor Maureen O’Connor learned Thursday that Gov. George Deukmejian will meet with her later this month to discuss the city’s growing drug and gang-warfare problems.

Ending what some prominent Republicans contend was a deliberate cold-shoulder, Deukmejian’s staff invited O’Connor to Sacramento on Sept. 19 to detail the city’s request for $103 million in state and federal funds to help build courtrooms and jails, hire more police officers and finance anti-drug programs.

“We’re very pleased that we’re going to have an opportunity to tell the governor directly what the problems are in San Diego,” O’Connor’s press secretary Paul Downey said. “Once he has a chance to hear the magnitude of the problems, he’ll be in a much better position to take action to give us some relief.”

State of Emergency?

Last May, O’Connor asked Deukmejian to declare a state of emergency because of gang- and drug-related crime on San Diego streets. She requested $34 million of the state’s $2.5-billion surplus.

When Deukmejian rejected the funding request the next month, O’Connor’s staff once again sought a personal meeting and was told to put the request in writing, which O’Connor did in a June 22 letter to the governor.

Though Deukmejian’s aides denied that the Republican governor was purposely putting off the Democratic mayor, other prominent Republicans hinted that Sacramento was attempting to send a message to O’Connor, who has been frequently criticized for her inaccessibility to local leaders.

Tom Stickel, county chairman of Deukmejian’s 1986 reelection campaign, described as “a fairly obvious conclusion the suggestion that O’Connor’s chilly reception was at least partly a pay-back for the manner in which she has handled similar requests from major San Diego figures.

Another factor in O’Connor’s protracted inability to arrange a meeting with Deukmejian, others argued, was her failure to give the governor a courtesy call before holding the May news conference at which she requested the state-of-emergency declaration.

Hoping to put that unpleasantness behind, mayoral spokesman Downey went to lengths Thursday to praise Deukmejian’s “fine law-and-order record” and to emphasize O’Connor’s hope that the governor will be receptive to her request.

“The governor may not be aware of all the intricacies of the drug and gang problems we have in San Diego because of the border situation and the major methamphetamine problem,” Downey said. “We’re just glad we’re going to be able to tell our story.”