SAMSON Sees Return of Ward Elections Issue

It was a cliffhanger to the end. The lead in the vote count changed four times during the night, and shortly after 2 a.m. opponents of a proposition to change local government in Santa Ana held a scant 15-vote lead.

A final surge in the last few precincts gave the “No on Measure C” group a 282-vote victory. The movement to institute ward elections and a directly elected mayor had lost by only one percentage point.

Jim Lowman, a spokesman for the pro-C group, said he doesn’t think the issue is dead. “Somehow, we’ll change it in the future,” he said. Measure C proponents Wednesday did not have plans to seek a recount.

Vice Mayor P. Lee Johnson said he expects the ward issue to surface again, largely because of pressure from minority groups who feel they have better access to council seats under a ward system. “There are a lot of people who believe that the only way for minorities to get elected is to cut the city up into ever smaller pieces,” he said.

Johnson said he thinks that the proposal would have so politicized business at City Hall that staffers were probably relieved to see it go down to defeat. “I suspect that at about 3 a.m. a whole crowd of people breathed a sigh of relief and put their resumes back in their desks,” he said.

Whites make up less than half of the city’s 221,637 population, with 44.5% of the residents of Latino origin, 6.4% Asian and 3.9% black.

Former Mayor Gordon Bricken, who kept a low profile during the campaign, admitted late Tuesday that he has been a driving force behind the movement from the start and actually wrote the proposition. “It’s a lot easier to maneuver when you’re behind the scenes,” he said.

Bricken, who was defeated by Councilman Wilson B. Hart in the 1984 election, said he believes that the close vote indicates that “it’s just a matter of time” before the city must change.

Mayor Dan Griset said he would urge the council to put a proposition on the November ballot calling for a directly elected mayor who would also be one of the voting council members.

Second Defeat

Tuesday was the second time Santa Ana voters rejected ward election propositions. The first time was in 1983. In 1974, voters rejected the notion of a directly elected mayor.

Griset, a Democratic candidate for state Assembly in November, noted that he will not be back on the council, choosing instead to step down if he is defeated for the state office.

If Measure C had been passed Tuesday, all seven council seats and the mayor’s office would have been on the ballot in November, but Bricken claimed that he wasn’t interested in running.

Most council members said they doubted that.

“I think if it had passed, you would have seen Gordon Bricken’s name on the ballot in November,” Johnson said.

With Jim Lowman as their spokesman, the Santa Ana Merged Society of Neighbors (SAMSON) began by calling for the recall of all seven council members and the firing of City Manager Robert C. Bobb (with the slogan “Recall Seven, Fire One”). SAMSON--which includes city firefighters, groups opposed to city plans for a sports arena downtown, another working to reduce commuter traffic in a north-central neighborhood and an immigrants’ rights organization--modified its plans to what eventually became Measure C.

Dirty Politics Blamed

The opposition was quarterbacked by the Chamber of Commerce and a group called the Good Government Committee, composed of residents and businessmen who frequently get involved in local elections. Lowman blamed the defeat on the “dirty politics” of mailers distributed by his opponents.

The literature included a mailer saying that the measure would turn Santa Ana into a “slum” and listing immigrants’ rights activist Nativo Lopez as its leader, prompting accusations of racism from SAMSON members.

Accountant Robert Miranda, who was treasurer for both anti-C groups, denied the charge and said the group was merely focusing on the issues. “I’m Hispanic and I don’t think it was racist,” he said.

But SAMSON members were unconvinced and blamed the mailers for the final result. “If we’d have held the election two weeks ago, we’d have wiped them out,” said George Hanna.

Said fellow SAMSON member Pete Major, “No matter what happens, we win because we’ve still got our dignity.”