Betty Wilson not hosting parties for her husband, San Diego's mayor

The taxpayers of San Diego pay Mayor Pete Wilson the middlin’ wage of $20,000 a year. Some say we get a lot for our money. Everybody would agree on one bargain, though: we also get the services of Mrs. Pete Wilson ... for free. In political circles, first ladies have traditionally, if not sexistly, come with the job. And they don’t usually have jobs of their own. Betty Wilson is the first working mayor’s wife since wartime San Diego. If being thought of as a political asset sounds tag-a-long and passive, she gets to wear an independent, self-starter label in her paid job, as realtor.

Of course, Betty Wilson decided to go into real estate sales because its demands fit well with those of her public life. After a couple of years in Sacramento as the wife of Pete Wilson, Assemblyman, she started looking for non-teapartyish ways to spend her time. The Wilsons had two homes then. They lived in the capital during the week and came to San Diego on weekends.

Mrs. Wilson says that although there was plenty for her to do in San Diego, she had few public responsibilities in Sacramento. So she got her real estate license there. She has been selling in San Diego for three years now, with Leonard M. Smith in La Mesa, and is at the point where business from referrals is beginning to come her way. “I’m not the greatest salesman (sic) in the world, but finding the right house for a family is a happy thing. Real estate is a service, and I work very hard for my clients.”

The mayor’s wife did not just apply for the job with Leonard Smith. It was a friend of a friend sort of introduction. Mayor Wilson thought she shouldn’t work out of San Diego because of the chance Mrs. Wilson might have to appear before City Council — for a zoning hearing, for example. “I disagreed, and I was right there. I do lots of my work in San Diego, anyway.” Mrs. Wilson felt La Mesa was too impractical, too far from downtown to be a successful center of operation for residential sales, but now she thinks she could not have made a better choice of offices. Aside from taking her turn on the floor, she works her own hours and her own pace. There is not pressure to get listings. “Having the mayor’s wife in the office is something Leonard (Smith) had to consider too. It’s awfully decent of him.” Mrs. Wilson says Smith has to eliminate himself, as well, from any deals which might require a City Council heanng.

The hours are irregular, but it is a steady job for Betty Wilson. A year ago, she got her broker’s license, not because of any immediate ambitions but because it seemed like a good time to take the exam, and there are more opportunities for brokers. Mrs. Wilson says she does not know where the career will take her. She sells mostly houses now but is taking time to learn about commercial property, too.

The Wilson incumbency, she feels, is good for her profession. The redevelopment of downtown San Diego and a planned development approach. Neither the uncontrolled growth that characterized San Diego building in the past, nor the no-growth label attached by critics of Wilson’s policies.

“Betty” is the “in” name, nowadays, for first ladies. San Diego’s, though, has a political background of her own. Mrs. Wilson’s involvement with politics started long before she met attorney Pete Wilson. As a suburban mother in Palos Verdes, she campaigned for a school bond issue, “the hardest kind.” Palos Verdes was voting on whether to become an independent school district or to annex to Los Angeles. “Before I moved there, they had had two elections. I was involved in the third. And, of the three elections, the largest vote spread was seven votes!” It was door-knocking, phone-calling work. “I had never done anything like that before, but I believed in the issue very strongly.” Mrs. Wilson is proud to say that today Palos Verdes Unified is one of the finest school systems in the state.

Later, when a friend asked her to work for George Murphy's senate campaign, Mrs. Wilson thought it would be a new experience. But the campaign trail was familiar territory. She had been there before on the school bond issue. “I found out that I had, indeed, been involved in politics.”

At a transitional period of her life, when her children were in their teens, and her marriage was dissolving, Mrs. Wilson took an aptitude test. She was trying to decide whether to finish school. (She had dropped out of a sociology course at U.S.C. to get married.) The test told her she would be good at teaching and politics. (The same test told her to stay away from selling. That’s why she looks at real estate as a service.) Before she had to make a decision, however, politics was offered to her in the form of an invitation to join the George Murphy campaign. Mrs. Wilson recalls that she was still attached to her suburban life-style when the friend made the suggestion. “I’ll never forget when Carol (Finch) called me and said, come on and do this with me for just a month, I said I was just going to start some golf lessons. That was the last golf game I played in seven years.”

The “one-month” led to two years with the Robert Finch for Lieutenant Governor campaign. From doing “pretty much what I wanted, I went to working 12 to 14 hours a day, every day. It was a big experience in my life.” Not only because of the work, but, as it turned out, because the Finch campaign brought Betty and Pete Wilson together.

They met at a dinner for Finch. During their courtship, they were both campaigning, he for assemblyman, and she for Finch’s lieutenant governor bid. A couple of years later, they were campaigning together.

Mrs. Wilson says her experience as a paid staff worker made her appreciate the work of the Wilson campaign staffers. “Everyone lives together on a campaign. I know what staffers go through.”

What campaigns does Mrs. Wilson foresee? She barely mentioned the possibility of Mayor Wilson’s running for a senate seat, if there should be vacancy in the right year. And when asked what she would be doing if they happened to move to Washington — “I don’t know if it’ll be what I’m doing now, but I’ll do something.”

Something other than attending ladies’ luncheons, to be sure.