Diverse Allies Join Forces to Fight City Hall in Santa Ana

Perhaps never before in Santa Ana have so many people for so many different reasons come together to work for a singular, yet so potentially far-reaching objective.

In recent weeks there has been an unprecedented grass-roots movement to unite widely diverse political factions in Orange County’s second largest city. The leaders of the movement claim to represent up to 18,800 people from a conglomeration of 13 otherwise independent groups.

Collectively, they are spoiling for a fight with City Hall.

The unlikely coalition has proposed revamping city government by creating an executive mayor’s position to replace the appointed city manager, by electing City Council members from wards rather than by citywide vote and by electing the now appointive Planning Commission.

Talk of Recalling Council

When the City Council didn’t agree last week to put those matters on a special June election ballot, leaders of Santa Ana Merged Society of Neighbors started talking again of recalling not one, but all seven council members. There has never been a recall election in Santa Ana’s 100-year history.

On Saturday, the coalition backed off from the recall threat and voted instead to begin collecting signatures with the intent of pressuring the council into calling a special election in June. The coalition’s proposals now call for ward elections and a directly elected mayor with veto power but no vote on the City Council and no administrative duties. The other proposals, including the elimination of the city manager’s job, have been shelved, coalition spokesman Jim Lowman said.

Mayor Daniel E. Griset criticized the new proposals, which were filed with the city Friday to meet a ballot issue deadline, saying they pitted the council against the mayor and weakened city leadership. Lowman said the position would provide an additional “check and balance” in city government and argued that the mayor’s veto would make him more powerful.

Door-to-Door Canvass

The citizens’ coalition hopes to deploy about 300 people going door-to-door with voter registration lists on the weekend of Feb. 1-2. Nativo Lopez, spokesman for Hermandad Mexicana Nacional, which has supported a two-year rent strike by Latino residents, said his group could provide about 150 people for the effort.

Griset said he thinks that the citizens’ movement is “not much different than a movie studio lot with a lot of facades with not much behind it. The whole thing is just going to peter out.”

The original issues that stirred these protesters ran the gamut.

Some residents were outraged when auto traffic was rerouted through their neighborhood. Some tried unsuccessfully to get the city’s help to mediate mobile home park rent disputes. Some are city firefighters with complaints about department morale.

Others want to save Santa Ana Stadium (Eddie West Field) from the wrecking ball. Some don’t want a new domed basketball arena in their neighborhood. Some don’t want a new football stadium in theirs. There are those who want more low-income housing and still others who believe that minorities are being systematically pushed out of town to make room for upscale residents.

But, according to coalition spokesmen, they all agree on one thing: City officials have been unresponsive to their complaints.

As a result, in the past week, the protesters officially became a state-sanctioned political action committee--SAMSON.

“In the past, people just took the attitude that you couldn’t fight City Hall,” said Lowman, who helped to organize the coalition. “With this group that we’ve put together, I’m certain it can be done. Not only will we fight City Hall, but we will win.”

Some council members dismiss the protesters as politically ineffectual. Others consider them well-intentioned residents, some of whose demands deserve study.

However, few at City Hall were willing to concede, as Councilman Wilson B. Hart did, that if the support for the coalition’s protest actually is as broad-based as claimed, “We (on the City Council) have got to look at ourselves real hard and analyze what we’re doing wrong.”

Widely Divergent Groups

Just how deep and broad the coalition’s support runs remains to be seen. Even within their ranks, there are protesters who question how long their widely divergent organizations can hold together.

Lowman, who has emerged as a chief spokesman for the coalition, admitted that he does not know how many of the affiliated organizations formally asked their memberships to approve joining the coalition.

Nevertheless, the coalition would seem to pose the most serious challenge yet to the direction steered by City Manager Robert C. Bobb on instructions from the City Council.

Many of the individual complaints of the 13 groups can be traced to Santa Ana’s ambitious redevelopment programs. Even the traffic issue stemmed from auto traffic generated by downtown redevelopment.

If the City Council and city Administration can weather this political storm, it would be a substantial victory for their redevelopment policies, which in recent years have made Santa Ana the second-ranking Orange County city in new construction valuation and taxable sales.

City’s Offer Snubbed

Meanwhile, City Council members at least temporarily deflected the coalition’s demands last week by refusing to put the proposed charter amendments before the voters in a special June election. Instead, the council voted to appoint a committee to study the issue. Leaders of the coalition turned down the city’s offer to join in the study.

“They say let’s talk on their turf (and) on their terms, and nothing is ever resolved,” complained coalition member George Hanna, who last year was protesting the auto traffic diverted through his north Santa Ana residential neighborhood. “It’s a typical stalling tactic. They are always buying time.”

The coalition was formed when enough people like Hanna came to similar conclusions at about the same time.

“It (the coalition) encompasses all of Santa Ana,” said Carmen Padilla, of Friends and Neighbors of Centennial Park, which opposes plans for a new football stadium there to replace Santa Ana Stadium. “It was made for all those people to come together because they felt they were hitting their heads against the wall.

“This is a democracy,” Padilla said. “We voted for them (council members). They should listen to us.”

Sparks That Lit Fire

Vice Mayor P. Lee Johnson said the proposed domed stadium and the north Santa Ana traffic problems sparked the coalition’s formation.

“The two just happened to come up at the same time,” Johnson said. “They (complaining residents) managed to get some press coverage, and pretty soon they were drawing everyone who had some complaint with the city.”

Mayor Griset is quick to dismiss the coalition as “a collection of contradictions without any clear statements of positive purpose.”

Some coalition members have sought advice from former Santa Ana Mayor Gordon Bricken, who was defeated by Hart in the 1984 council election. Bricken said he is not affiliated with the group.

“The root of (the controversy), in my judgment, is the leadership of Dan Griset,” Bricken said. “Griset . . . likes to pretend all of this turmoil is the result of aggressive redevelopment policies. That’s utter nonsense.

“Each of these groups will tell you in some fashion that they have been told by Dan Griset, ‘It’s my way or no way.’

Comments on Bobb

“The other part of it,” Bricken said, “is you have a city manager (Bobb) who . . . has portrayed much of the same kind of personality. He goes around telling people they don’t know what is good for them and that he does.”

The coalition had proposed replacing Bobb’s position of city manager with a mayor elected by voters and empowered as an administrator. The mayor’s position now is a ceremonial post filled by a council member appointed by the full council.

“He (Bobb) is down there ruining our city, and the City Council is not aware of it,” said Ron Heicke, who opposes city plans to demolish Santa Ana Stadium to make room for a domed sports arena.

Bobb, who has been instructed by councilmen not to comment on the coalition’s proposals, said he only administers the directives of the council. For example, he said, the initial proposal to locate a domed sports arena on the Santa Ana Stadium site was made prior to his becoming city manager two years ago and even now is not a firm commitment.

Bobb declined to discuss the coalition’s complaints but said he has been responsive and sensitive to residents’ opinions.

Mayor Griset said: “I don’t think (Bobb) is at all pleased that the first talk of recall in city history has happened while he’s city manager.

“There have been a number of comments that have been made in the press that have been at variance with council thinking,” Griset said of statements by Bobb and others in the city administration. “The council’s role is to establish a vision for the city; then it becomes the job of the organization to deliver the programs that get us where we want to be.”

Nevertheless, Griset said, “I do not believe the people of Santa Ana are ready to abolish the council-manager form (of government). It’s foolish to expect the public is ready for a change like this.”

But coalition spokesman Lowman said: “If we don’t like what the city manager is doing, our only alternative is to get five new councilmen to fire him. Whereas, if he were a mayor, we could either vote him out of office or recall him.

The coalition had proposed an annual salary of $60,000 for the new position of executive mayor. Bobb is paid $84,000 as city manager, and his fringe benefits add about another $25,000.

The coalition has also proposed that voters within each council district elect their council members, rather than, as now, having them elected by voters citywide.

Favors Larger Voice

Lopez, the rent strikers’ spokesman, said his organization favors district elections.

“Lower-income people will have a larger voice, and there will be better political representation for the Latino community,” he said.

But Councilman Hart said Santa Ana is too small a city to justify district elections for council members.

“It’s not like Congress,” he said. “How fine do you cut up a geographical area in the interest of democracy? Why don’t we have a council member from every block?

“I think the Hispanic community is better off with the current system,” Hart said. “Ultimately their numbers will be able to decide the fates of candidates in every ward, not just one or two.”

Lopez said the city’s redevelopment policies and attempts to upgrade substandard housing are squeezing low-income minorities out of Santa Ana.

Called Incidental

“It is very racist,” Lopez said. “It’s not so subtle. I think it’s all part of the redevelopment design.”

But Mayor Griset said displacement of the city’s poor “has been an incidental part of change” and that the few families involved have received substantial relocation assistance.

“This City Council is not advancing the politics of poverty . . . to take care of society’s poor,” Griset said. “Our politics are the politics of progress.”

Coalition member Bob Lopez, who is also head of Save Our Stadium and active in the Alliance for Fair Redevelopment in Santa Ana, agreed that the rate of redevelopment in Santa Ana is at the root of many complaints. But he said he thinks that the city has moved too quickly.

“I think people like this California style of living, and if we’re not careful, we’ll have a Los Angeles in Orange County--or even a Manhattan,” Lopez said.

But Councilman Hart said: “These (the coalition) people have short memories, and in fairness to them, some of them weren’t around when downtown Santa Ana was one of the most squalid slums of any downtown in California.”

Sees Positive Aspect

Despite the differences of opinion, Councilman Dan Young said, it is “very positive to see people getting involved and giving us their views.” But he denied the council has been unresponsive.

Like others on the council, Councilwoman Patricia McGuigan suggested that the protests may reflect the city’s aggressive push to clean up a decaying city.

“I think the things that come about as a result of that growth policy--increases in traffic, development and construction--are always going to anger some people,” she said.

Hart agreed that large-scale development and renewal are bound to stir public sentiment.

“Five years ago,” Hart said, “you couldn’t get 15 people or 200 people to come together in Santa Ana over anything. In some respects we’re becoming victims of our own successes. There’s a future worth fighting over.”

There are other factors, however, that have drawn support for the coalition.

Firefighters’ Complaints

During a 40-minute meeting with Bobb and Fire Chief William Reimer last week, fire association representatives requested that Reimer be fired, city officials said. Bobb said he would not comment on “a personnel matter,” and association spokesman Jim Dalton said the firefighters are supporting the coalition and the petition drive.

Griset doesn’t think that the coalition will be around very long.

“The council will come out of this with some constructive items on charter matters that will be put to the voters long after this movement has collapsed from its own contradictions,” Griset said.

Coalition member Hanna is more confident:

“This political action committee we have founded is going to be around for a while,” he said. “This (involves) the quality of your life. It’s not the state level or the national level that affects the quality of your life.”