Griset Will Urge Count of SAMSON Petitions

Mayor Dan Griset said he would recommend to the Santa Ana City Council today that the registrar of voters begin counting petitions submitted Wednesday by a citizens group and rejected by the city clerk because of errors in form.

The petitions, which call for a vote in June on whether the mayor should be directly elected and council members elected by wards, were delivered to the county registrar’s office Friday afternoon. If Griset’s move is endorsed by a majority of the council at this morning’s meeting, the registrar will be instructed to begin checking the validity of the more than 7,000 signatures immediately.

Griset said at a press conference Friday that if the petitions contain at least 6,288 valid voter signatures, enough to force a proposition onto the ballot, he would call a special session of the council to authorize a June election on the issue.

City Clerk Janice Guy rejected the petitions Wednesday, at the city attorney’s advice, because they weren’t written in the form required by state law.

Impressed by Numbers

Griset said the fact that more than 7,000 signatures were collected in one week was a major reason for his position. “It’s not appropriate to make an argument for form over substance,” he said.

Deputy Registrar Shirley Deaton said she accepted the petitions Friday but “only as mail” since Guy still hasn’t officially accepted the forms. Deaton said her office would be ready to begin counting signatures today and probably could finish by 5 p.m. Tuesday. The counting would cost the city more than $6,300.

Jim Lowman, spokesman for the citizens group Santa Ana Merged Society of Neighbors (SAMSON), said he would give up the attempt if the petitions contain less than the 6,288 valid names.

Lowman’s enthusiasm for Griset’s plan was not shared by some council members contacted Friday.

Councilman John Acosta described plan as “caving in” to SAMSON demands and argued that a maneuver to overrule the city clerk would set a precedent.

“We have a bad petition here. Why are we bothering to count names?” he said. “I’ve got no problem with putting issues to the voters, but where do we draw the line when we’re talking about spending money on these issues? When we start bending the rules like this, where do we stop?”

Vice Mayor P. Lee Johnson said he was also caught off guard by the mayor’s press conference late Friday. He said that he doesn’t support either of the SAMSON proposals and that he “doesn’t see anything wrong with the council-manager form of government.”

Todays’s vote may be academic anyway, Johnson noted, because the signatures collected fell far short of the group’s goal of 10,000 names. Since petitions on city issues frequently contain some invalid signatures, the 7,000 signatures are “cutting it pretty thin,” he said.

The council previously had shown little willingness to put the group’s issues on the ballot in June, since those changes then would be effective for council elections in November. The council instead formed a commission to study proposed changes and, if warranted, make recommendations.

Griset, who is running for the Democratic nomination for a state Assembly seat in June, said the commission would remain active even if the council puts the SAMSON proposals to the voters in June. The commission would study proposals and assist in conducting public hearings on the changes before the election, he said.