2 Drives to Make English Official Language Set Back

Campaigns to declare English the official language suffered setbacks in two San Gabriel Valley cities when the Alhambra City Council refused to act on a proposed resolution and the Monterey Park city clerk rejected an initiative petition for the second time.

At the end of a stormy, standing-room-only meeting Monday night, the Alhambra council rejected, without taking a vote, a resolution offered by a citizens group that would have declared English the official language of that city.

Proponents argued that bilingual education, multilingual ballots and business signs in Chinese were encouraging separation rather than assimilation. Mark Lockman, leader of the group, said the resolution “would in no way restrict the free exercise of speech in public, but it would send a message to our immigrants to start using English.”

But most of those speaking at the meeting opposed the measure.

Mayor Michael Blanco outlined the city’s programs to deal with an influx of Asian immigrants, who comprise an estimated 25% of the city’s 70,000 residents, and said the proposed resolution “may be misunderstood and tend to divide us rather than unite us.” City Atty. Leland Dolley said the measure would violate the constitutional guarantees of free speech and equal protection under the law as well as federal civil rights laws.

In Monterey Park on Monday, City Clerk Pauline Y. Lemire rejected a resubmitted English language petition on the advice of City Atty. Richard Morillo. The petition, signed by more than 3,300 people, was originally submitted to the city clerk on Nov. 12 in an effort to put a measure on the April city election ballot. Morillo, however, ruled the petition was invalid because it failed to contain the text of an ordinance.

Initiative proponents Frank Arcuri and Barry Hatch resubmitted the petition last week with an attached one-sentence ordinance. But Morillo said the resubmission did not cure the defect because the ordinance was not included in the petition that voters signed. Morillo said the petition, containing the full text of a proposed ordinance, must be recirculated to qualify the measure for the ballot.

Arcuri said he plans to recirculate the petition. He also said he may seek a court order to put the measure on the ballot.