Pratt, Henderson Legacies as Different as Their Styles : Government: The two political opposites, both defeated in bids for second council terms, look back as they prepare to leave.

By BARRY M. HORSTMAN

Nov. 30, 1991 12 AM PT

TIMES STAFF WRITER

As they prepare to depart the San Diego City Council on Monday, Councilmen Wes Pratt and Bruce Henderson ironically find themselves linked in a way they seldom were during their four years at City Hall.

Political and personal opposites, the two councilmen, defeated in their bids for second terms, share a dimming public spotlight as they make the transition to seeing the word former appear in front of the title they will relinquish when their successors are sworn in.

“It’s pretty unusual to talk about them in the same breath, because you probably couldn’t find two people on the council who are farther apart,” Councilman Ron Roberts said. “For them both to have lost, it makes you wonder what the voters were looking for.”

Indeed, Henderson and Pratt will leave behind dramatically divergent legacies reflective of their considerable differences in philosophy and style.

Pratt is a moderate Democrat who promoted a wide array of social programs, Henderson a conservative Republican who opposed most of those plans and prided himself on “saying no”--casting, for example, the lone votes against a Human Dignity Ordinance outlawing discrimination against homosexuals, and against creation of a Human Relations Commission designed to target racial, ethnic and religious discrimination.

“If you say no enough times to enough people, you probably cause some problems for yourself at election time,” Henderson said, offering his succinct analysis of his 56%-44% loss to Salk Institute cancer researcher and first-time candidate Valerie Stallings in this month’s 6th District race.

Displaying a modest, low-key manner admired by his colleagues, Pratt spoke sparingly at the council’s weekly meetings, giving his words added weight.

“You paid a little extra attention, because his light wasn’t on every single time,” said Mayor Maureen O’Connor, referring to the small board on the council dais on which illuminated lights signify a member’s desire to speak.

Henderson, in contrast, spoke often and at length--particularly, his colleagues grumbled, on Mondays, when the council meetings are broadcast on cable television. His customary long-windedness prompted other council members to often joke about a subject of particular pride to Henderson: his post-college Peace Corps service on the island of Yap in the Western Pacific. The locale, they said--sometimes smiling, sometimes not--was particularly appropriate.

Furthermore, Henderson’s grandstanding tendencies--as when he used an inflated shark and the theme from “Jaws” to dramatize his opposition to one program--were a constant irritant to other council members.

Indeed, the day after Henderson’s defeat, one council member remarked, only half-jokingly, the entire council was indebted to Stallings, “because the meetings will get over two hours quicker now and it won’t be like a circus around here.”

Even Henderson’s staunchest allies in the business and development communities were bothered by his carnival tactics and characteristic bluntness, sometimes mistaken for arrogance.

“Bruce wasn’t as effective as he could have been, simply because of his style,” conceded Mac Strobl, a frequent City Hall lobbyist. “He demeaned his own accomplishments with the manner in which he presented them.”

By Henderson’s own estimate, a single council term is usually insufficient to leave a lasting mark on City Hall or San Diego itself.

“So many things you do here are long-range and take so much persistence to push through the bureaucracy,” said Henderson, a 48-year-old lawyer. “Six to eight years probably is the optimum, because it takes that long to bring major projects to fruition.”

Both Henderson and Pratt, however, can point to significant accomplishments during their relatively brief tenures at City Hall. Indeed, one of the paradoxes of Henderson’s defeat is that he produced what is arguably the single most significant achievement of any council member during the past four years.

When he first ran for the council in 1987, Henderson termed a $3-billion-plus secondary sewage treatment plan that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency was seeking to impose on San Diego “ the political issue for the rest of this century in San Diego.” The upgraded treatment system is designed to bring the city into compliance with federal clean water standards.

Once on the council, Henderson persistently questioned the program’s merits, pointing to marine biologists’ claims that the plan would do little if anything to improve ocean water quality, and warned colleagues who seemed resigned to its inevitability that it could ultimately quadruple water and sewer rates.

Based on that scientific evidence, Henderson intervened in a federal lawsuit stemming from the EPA’s attempt to force San Diego to proceed with the plan, which, due to inflation and financing costs, eventually could cost up to $10 billion.

In large measure because of Henderson’s role, a U.S. District Court judge subsequently deferred approval of the sewage upgrading plan until 1993, a ruling that could save San Diego billions of dollars and accelerate its water-reclamation program.

“When council members talk about their accomplishments, it usually involves creating a program or putting in street lights or parks in neighborhoods,” political consultant David Lewis said. “But Henderson did something that might save billions of dollars. Even if you hated everything else he did, he probably deserved to be reelected for that reason alone.”

One group not saddened in the least by Henderson’s defeat, however, is San Diego’s environmental community, which found itself in an uneasy alliance with Henderson on the sewage issue but detected little other redeeming value to his council service.

Because of his staunchly pro-development record, both the Sierra Club and the managed-growth group Prevent Los Angelization Now! rated Henderson as having the worst environmental record on the council--with the former organization making him the recipient of its “Golden Bulldozer” award.

“Henderson not only disagreed with you, but liked to do it in a vindictive way,” said PLAN leader Peter Navarro, whom Henderson once termed the “Tom Hayden of San Diego,” a reference to the controversial liberal state assemblyman from Santa Monica. “He had a knack for offending just about everyone if he was around them long enough. So I say good riddance.”

Sixth District community leaders inclined toward a more charitable assessment of Henderson’s record credit him with a handful of other notable legislative achievements--among them, preserving a stand of eucalyptus trees in Los Penasquitos Canyon Preserve, acquiring two police helicopters vital to canyon searches and protecting Pacific Beach from an influx of condominiums and apartments through a council-approved downzoning plan reducing future densities.

“The satisfaction from those things certainly lessens the disappointment” over losing, said Henderson, whose first goal upon leaving City Hall will be to complete an already started book on growth and the public policy dilemmas posed by it.

“In truth, I don’t know that public office in and of itself is very important to me,” he said. “What drives me more than anything else is the fact that we’re at a very critical juncture in San Diego’s history.

“You can make a great difference here in public office, but you also can probably do that as the director of the zoo or in a lot of other positions. So, perhaps not getting reelected is a blessing in disguise that will allow me to finish this book.”

Though none of Pratt’s accomplishments--or, for that matter, those of most other council members--had the 100-megaton impact of Henderson’s work on the sewage issue, he, too, wrote several major chapters in the council’s history over the past four years.

Pratt’s record is highlighted by his leading role in the creation this year of a $28-million Neighborhood Pride and Protection Program, an ambitious crime-reduction plan that provides funding for both enforcement and preventive activities ranging from youth recreation, longer library hours and anti-gang programs to the hiring of more police officers and jail operations.

“That’s something that’s going to leave a lasting imprint on the 4th District and the entire city,” said Pratt, 40, who plans to practice law while pondering future political options. “Lives and communities are going to be changed by that, so whenever I get a little down about not being on the council, I’ll think about that.”

Representing a district with crime rates among the highest in the city, Pratt, who chaired the council’s Public Services and Safety Committee, often took the lead on myriad other anti-crime programs. With his help, the city expanded its police force to keep pace with growing population, returned more foot patrol officers to neighborhoods and organized a special anti-gang detail.

Pratt devoted equal energy--though admittedly with more modest results--toward programs designed to expand job opportunities in his economically depressed district and to keep youths off the streets. He helped create the Project Employment Program, a partnership between businesses and churches that has helped place more than 200 people in jobs, and organized another job-training program in which about 100 youths perform tasks such as clearing park trails, painting seniors’ houses and managing recycling projects.

Seeking to promote small-business development, Pratt also helped establish a revolving loan fund and “business incubator” program that makes loans of up to $25,000 available to individuals.

In addition, Pratt overcame strong opposition within the council in helping create the city’s Housing Trust Fund, a multimillion-dollar program designed to stimulate the construction of low-income housing.

Pratt’s reticence and preference for quiet negotiation over rhetorical pyrotechnics allowed him to remain largely above the fray during many of the council’s embarrassing episodes of public bickering over the past two years. Though a member of the so-called moderate “Gang of Five” that dominated the council until it was dismantled by Councilwoman Linda Bernhardt’s recall last April, his rapport with his four other colleagues, while strained by a contentious battle over redistricting, never disintegrated to the extent others’ did.

His self-described “deliberate, reasonable approach,” however, sometimes spawned criticism that Pratt lacked the forceful, aggressive stance with some of the most pressing needs of any region of the city. Critics regarded his failure to win approval of a proposal to name the bayfront Convention Center after the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. as emblematic of what they saw as the shortcomings of Pratt’s quiet style.

“It’s fine to say you’ve got to work within the system, which is true, but when the system isn’t working and isn’t fair for your constituents, then it’s time to get a little angry,” said the Rev. George Stevens, who defeated Pratt in a rematch of their 1987 contest.

Though Pratt called his council term “the most rewarding period” in a public career that began as a legislative aide in Sacramento and San Diego, he acknowledges that the long hours attendant to the job are one facet of it that he will not miss.

The father of two girls and a boy ranging in age from 5 to 21, Pratt noted that he “got to see only about two innings” of his 11-year-old daughter’s softball season this year.

“You realize that while you’ve been trying to help make other people’s lives better, you’ve been neglecting your own,” Pratt said. “Now I’ll have a chance to bring more balance to my personal and professional lives. Maybe losing the election was just a way of showing that someone out there has other plans for Wes.”