Fullerton : City to Notify Residents of New Election Schedule

Residents should receive post cards the first week in June notifying them that local elections have been moved to coincide with statewide general elections.

The decision to move the election date from April to November was one of two changes Council members approved last month. The council also extended the one-year mayor and mayor pro tem terms to two years.

Council members Chris Norby and Molly McClanahan dissented from the majority vote to extend the terms for Mayor Alan “Buck” Catlin and Mayor Pro Tem Richard Ackerman. Both said the extension was a method to keep McClanahan from the post.

“I was disappointed. I don’t think it was fair. But you move along. I don’t feel any rancor,” McClanahan said.

McClanahan has been on the council since April, 1982. She was turned down for mayor pro tem last year and for both positions this year when the council on April 16 extended the current terms. McClanahan said fellow council members did not want her as mayor because she is perceived as a liberal.

Norby agreed with McClanahan and said the extension was “a way to keep Molly out for two years and seven months. . . . For tradition and in the interest of civic harmony, the thing should be rotated.”

Catlin said the extension of the terms were not used to keep McClanahan out but to establish continuity. The two-year terms were used in Fullerton about 10 years ago, he said. A one-year term, he said, “doesn’t provide the continuity that Fullerton needs.”

When her term expires in 1986, McClanahan said, she will run for reelection. In the meantime, she said, the issue will be put aside and City Council business will go on as usual, but “philosophically, it’s important.”