Era ends with Poway mayor’s final meeting

Although the meeting occurred 28 years ago, Don Higginson remembers the exact day and location of an event that changed the course of his life.

“May 12, 1986 at the Mexicocina Restaurant,” Poway’s outgoing mayor said recently. “John Mullin and Dick Lyles took me to lunch.”

The two were representing the city’s business community and were recruiting candidates to run for the City Council that fall. The existing council was seen by business interests as not being particularly friendly to their concerns.

Higginson, who had moved to Poway as a boy and graduated from Poway High and Brigham Young University, was a young attorney getting his professional life started.

“I volunteered in the Reagan-Bush campaign in 1980 and found it semi-magical working in a campaign,” he recalled. “I’d been out of law school for a couple of years and my wife and I decided to stay in Poway and raised our boys here.”

Higginson said he was one of about two-dozen community members considered by business committee. He, Linda Brannon and Carl Kruse got their nod from the voters that fall.

On Tuesday night Higginson will participate in his final council meeting, calling the meeting to order and then watching as Councilman Steve Vaus is sworn in to replace him as Poway’s elected mayor. Vaus collected about 55 percent of the votes last month to defeat Higginson. There will be a break in the meeting for coffee and cake, then Vaus will assume the mayor’s chair and Higginson will be free to begin the next chapter of his life.

With him will go nearly three decades of political institutional knowledge stretching back to “The City in the Country’s” early days after incorporation in 1980. Next in line in seniority is Jim Cunningham, who has served six years.

Those early days, Higginson said, were filled with efforts to close the “humongous breach” between the city and its business community and then deal with a recession that nearly stopped the under-construction Poway Business Park in its tracks.

“One of the first things we did was form a business advisory committee to bring the two sides together,” Higginson said.” After a while “at least we had a speaking relationship with the Chamber of Commerce.”

In the 1990s San Diego followed the rest of the nation into a deep recession. Several large property owners building in the business park were about to default on loans, putting the entire project in serious jeopardy. The council, sitting as the local redevelopment agency board, agreed to make some of those bond payments to avoid the parcels going into foreclosure, Higginson said. It was a bold and somewhat risky move at the time, he said, but one that paid off well for the city.

Redevelopment funds were also wisely used to build the Poway Center for the Performing Arts and other public facilities, Higginson said. The city also entered into an agreement with SportsPlex to build sports fields on business park property, then have the company manage the business.

“We got the business park up in revenues and we got an east-west corridor (Scripps Poway Parkway),” Higginson said. “But we never imagined at the time that big box stores would be in the business park.” Within a decade or so shoppers were coming “up the hill” to Costco, Home Depot and Kohl’s.

Of all the projects in which he was involved, Higginson said he’s most proud of Old Poway Park.

“The idea came along in 1988, after the city purchased the land from the Porter family,” Higginson said. “It was like having a baby. We had it, then watched it grow. Everything is identical to what we had planned. It turned out to be a great little place.’

Looking back on his 28 years on the council, where he served both as a councilmember and elected mayor, Higginson said he’s also proud of the city’s close working relationship with the Poway Unified School District. Again using redevelopment money, the city built gyms at Meadowbrook and Twin Peaks middles schools, financed a new track at Poway High and paid for artificial fields at two other schools.

The outgoing mayor said he’s also proud of the city’s low crime rate and its street repair program, where every street in the city receives attention every seven years.

The job of mayor has changed over the years, he said, to where there are more coordinated regional approaches to water, traffic and other issues. As mayor, Higginson sat on the San Diego Association of Governments, an influential countywide agency.

Higginson said he’s leaving the council content that he’s done his best to make Poway a good place to live and work.

“There are still a handful of people who just don’t understand what a great city we have,” he said. “Complaints? We just don’t get that many.”

His advice to Vaus is similar to the suggestions former City Manager Jim Bowersox gave him at the start of his first term as mayor: “Just remember two things, count to three and remember that people who come in to see you are coming to see the mayor, not Don Higginson.”

Higginson’s post-council plans include spending more time traveling and seeing his granddaughter.

“Life is great and I’m still living the dream,” he said.

The city is hosting a reception for Higginson from 6 to 8 p.m. Thursday, Dec. 18 in the council chambers. Light refreshments will be served. Those wishing to say a few words are asked to RSVP with Sheila at scobian@poway.org no later than 4 p.m. today (Thursday).