Coalition Plans Santa Ana City Council Recall Drive

A coalition of citizens groups, all protesting different actions of the Santa Ana City Council, announced Saturday that it will mount a recall effort against all seven council members.

The groups, calling themselves SAMSON (Santa Ana Merged Society of Neighbors), said they will file the action Monday and serve each council member with notices of intent to recall at the council meeting later that day. “Our slogan is ‘Recall Seven, Fire One,’ ” said spokesman Jim Lowman, adding that the “one” is City Manager Robert C. Bobb.

The coalition includes:

- Save Our Stadium, opposed to plans to demolish Santa Ana Stadium to make way for the Westdome arena.

- Concerned Residents of Santa Ana, opposed to the city’s North-Central Santa Ana Traffic Plan.

- The Fireman’s Benevolent Assn., representing all non-administrative employees of the Fire Department who are embroiled in a dispute with Fire Chief William Reimer and Bobb over what they call “morale-wrecking tactics.”

- Friends and Neighbors of Centennial Park, opposed to a plan to build an $11-million stadium there to replace Santa Ana Stadium.

- Hispanic Business and Professional Assn. of Orange County.

Lowman said the groups hope to gather the necessary 10,500 signatures--15% of the total number of people voting in the last election--by Jan. 31, 1986, and force a recall election by April.

At a press conference at Lowman’s insurance office on Bristol Street, SAMSON members said their individual complaints with the city all reflect an unwillingness on the part of the council and city staff to listen to their constituents.

“If you were drowning in water 20 feet offshore, the city would throw you 10 feet of rope,” Preston Guillory. said.

“In essence, what we have here is poor leadership,” said Sal Mendoza, an insurance broker and member of the city’s Redevelopment Commission. He cited a number of lawsuits filed against Santa Ana challenging a luxury condominium project downtown, the $90-million Centerpointe office-hotel complex and the traffic plan that essentially closed the north-central neighborhood to commuter traffic. Those lawsuits and others, he said, “should be sending a message to our leaders.”

Council members contacted Saturday expressed some surprise at the recall effort but said they fully expect some adverse reaction to the city’s aggressive development and redevelopment policies.

“When leaders are working to deal with old problems and bring about long-overdue changes, some people are going to have a problem with that,” Mayor Daniel E. Griset said. “Many people involved in this effort are well-meaning people but I think they’re going to find that this council is giving long-overdue leadership in attacking the downtown disaster.”

He said SAMSON consists of “a few activists who are frustrated that they can’t take over the city,” and predicted that most residents of Santa Ana would not sign the petitions.

“There’s no case on earth that justifies the removal of all seven council members,” Griset said.

Councilman Wilson Hart said: “There is a resistance to change that is more or less well intended, but it’s not been well thought through. We’ve been trying to mold the future in a fashion that we think serves everyone who lives here.”

Hart said he thinks the action may be intended to pressure the council members before they vote Monday on a $40-million bond to finance Westdome. However, he said, “I certainly take it seriously. . . . I guess I won’t view it as a matter of gravity until they begin to approach that 10,500 figure. Then I’ll probably have to start raising some money for a campaign.”

Vice Mayor P. Lee Johnson said: “Change is painful for a lot of people. If forward movement bothers them, I’m sorry.” He said he gets generally favorable comments from the community about development. “I think, by and large, the clear-thinking citizens support what we’re doing,” he said.

But Guillory predicted that the city’s use of redevelopment bonds will put it in serious financial trouble. “No one is taking the time to sit down and look at the long-range indebtedness,” he said.

Mendoza said he would like to see a full review of the city’s redevelopment. “I would encourage a blue-ribbon committee to investigate Santa Ana’s use of redevelopment funds,” he said. The investigation should not be conducted by the grand jury, he said, because it lacks expertise in redevelopment.

Pete Majors, a member of Save Our Stadium, said the city has violated his group’s civil liberties three times: by refusing to allow the group to use the city cable channel for a reply to presentations on Westdome (the group was instead allowed to use another channel designated for public use); by refusing to allow it to post signs on Santa Ana Stadium fences, and by refusing to allow it to parade balloons with SOS messages past television cameras at last weekend’s parade.

“This effort will fail,” Griset said, “because when it comes to presenting a positive agenda to the community, they won’t have one.”