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Minority groups blast owner of Padres over race-based initiative; Moores' support prompts protest

Jonathan Heller; STAFF WRITER

January 26, 2002

Copyright 2002 The San Diego Union-Tribune
The San Diego Union-Tribune

Leaders of several minority groups gathered at the downtown ballpark construction site yesterday to protest Padres owner John Moores' support of a controversial race-based initiative.

The groups called on Moores to renounce the Racial Privacy Initiative, which would ban most public agencies in the state from compiling racial and ethnic data.

Moores angered the minority groups by holding a fund-raiser Wednesday at his Rancho Santa Fe home for Ward Connerly, sponsor of the initiative, who is trying to collect enough signatures to qualify it for the November ballot. Moores and Connerly are members of the University of California board of regents. Abdur-Rahim Hameed, president of the San Diego Black Contractors Association, noted that the Padres enlisted the support of the minority community to help pass Proposition C in 1998, allowing the ballpark to move forward. But now he said he feels cheated.

"We're not going to tolerate this kind of chicanery and window-dressing from anybody," Hameed said to a gathering of about 20 people.

Moores did not return telephone calls for comment.

The protesters said the initiative, by preventing data collection on minority hiring, would make it easier to hide race-based hiring practices. It also would make it harder to identify areas where more community outreach is needed, they said.

Padres President Bob Vizas defended Moores, saying that nearly one-quarter of the ballpark's construction budget, or $44 million, has been spent on subcontracts with minority-owned companies.

Vizas said Moores also has donated millions of dollars to fight disease in Africa, $250,000 for minority scholarships at San Diego State University and $2 million for a children's health clinic in Tijuana, among other contributions.

People at yesterday's event said they were concerned that Moores might have been taken in by an initiative that purports to protect against racist practices, but in reality fosters them.

City Councilman George Stevens, who described himself as one of the ballpark project's greatest cheerleaders, said he was disappointed in Moores.

"I really hope he doesn't know what he is doing," Stevens said.