Purge Goes On in Anaheim as 4 More Get the Ax

A week after a veteran Anaheim planning commissioner was ousted by a divided City Council, four more appointed city officials met a similar fate Tuesday amid bitter charges by council members of power-mongering and dirty politics.

Planning Commissioners Leonard Lawicki and Glenn Fry, Redevelopment Commissioner William A. Ranney and Public Utilities Board member L. Kenneth Heuler were dismissed as Councilmen Fred Hunter, William D. Ehrle and Mayor Ben Bay voted to oust them over the vocal opposition of Councilman Irv Pickler and Mayor Pro Tem Miriam Kaywood.

On June 16, the council ended Charlene La Claire’s tenure on the Planning Commission just two weeks before her term was to expire. Earlier in the month, La Claire lost a bitter special election to Ehrle. The election was called to fill the council seat left vacant by Don R. Roth, who was elected last fall to the county Board of Supervisors.

Had Endorsed La Claire

Lawicki, who had served on the commission since July 9, 1985, had endorsed La Claire’s City Council candidacy, as did Fry, whose term also was to expire at the end of this month. Fry has been on the commission eight years.

Why Heuler and Ranney were singled out is not clear. Heuler was appointed to the utilities board by Pickler, who contended that that was the reason he was ousted. Repeated demands by Kaywood for explanations from Hunter, Bay and Ehrle were in vain.

“This used to be the greatest city there ever was,” Kaywood said. “But how can it go on operating if everyone needs a rear-view mirror to make sure the hatchet isn’t behind him. You do not have creativity in an atmosphere of fear and doubt.”

Bill Currier, who has served on the Anaheim Community Center Authority for 20 years, said that every time he sees a staff review on the City Council agenda, he has difficulty doing his job, wondering if he is next.

Pickler and Kaywood, who backed La Claire in her council bid, charged that Ehrle and his allies, Bay and Hunter, are vindictively “rewarding their friends and punishing their enemies,” turning Anaheim into what Pickler called “the laughingstock not only of the county but of the whole state.”

Test Proves Conclusive

To test the theory, Pickler moved to fire Joe White, a Bay appointee, from the utilities board, predicting that he would lose the vote, 3 to 2, which he did.

“I’ll be damned if I’m going to sit here and let three people tear apart this city,” he shouted.

Hunter insisted that the removals are nothing but a spring cleaning to bring in some fresh blood.

“There’s nothing wrong with change,” he said. “There’s change every day.”

Ehrle told reporters later that neither he nor his allies have ulterior motives. He said that he pledged in his campaign to get things moving and that that is what he is doing. Each position, he said, has been evaluated, and some tough decisions have had to be made.

In Heuler’s case, he was just not “grasping the magnitude” of his position on the utilities board, Ehrle said.

Heuler said that while his removal was a complete surprise, it was not shattering.

“I’ve gotten along for 67 years without serving on the utilities board, he said. “I think I can go on. I’m a big boy now.”

Heuler served on the Anaheim Union High School District board with Pickler in the 1960s, during which time they became friends but “not necessarily political allies,” he said. Last year, Pickler suggested that he serve on the Utilities Board.

“I got named. Now I got unnamed,” he said, laughing and calling Pickler’s nomination “the kiss of death.”

Fry, who has served the city in some capacity since 1967, was also taking the news lightly. Although he had said he would like to be reappointed to the Planning Commission, he has “no problems” with his removal and agreed with Hunter that the city needed new blood.

Lawicki and Ranney could not be reached for comment.

When a reporter told La Claire of the ousters, she said, “This justifies the fears I had before the election. These men are very personally ambitious. I hope that power doesn’t continue to go to their heads.”

Hunter, who was elected last November, and Ehrle do not appreciate the need for experience on the commissions, she said. “Because they don’t have the experience, they think nobody else needs it.”

One Anaheim resident in the audience, Barbara Sellick, accused the council of power-brokering.

“I was sure I learned in school that feudalism was practiced in Europe in the Middle Ages, not Anaheim in 1987,” she told the council.

But another resident, Sally Horton, said she was excited about the prospects of fresh faces in city government.

There could be more bloodletting next Tuesday, Pickler said, because Bay has put further staff reviews on the agenda for then.