Local Elections : Future Path of Development Looms as Key Issue in Buena Park Election

The City of Buena Park has long enjoyed its reputation as a mini-Anaheim without the clutter and sprawl, a residential hamlet with the allure of major recreational attractions.

But, increasingly perplexed about the direction and scope of the city’s growth, local officials recently have taken steps to assert some control over development. Those efforts loom as the main issues in the race for two City Council seats in Tuesday’s election.

Five candidates, including two incumbents, are vying for the seats in a campaign that has been marked by little controversy.

Tourism is big business for this big little town of just under 67,000, the home of Knott’s Berry Farm, the Movieland Wax Museum and the recently opened Medieval Times, where patrons are served by costumed servants while knights in shining armor joust.

In 1983, the nearly 5 million people who visited the city spent almost $88 million and generated an additional $26 million in indirect spending, according to a study.

Therefore, it was not surprising that city officials drew criticism for disbanding the city’s Visitor and Convention Bureau earlier this year and contracting for services with an outside firm.

Controversy also was generated when the city imposed a moratorium on development along a mostly commercial-recreational stretch of Beach Boulevard while a comprehensive plan for future development was drawn up. But the recently approved “Entertainment Corridor” plan has been attacked on the one hand as too vague and lacking in direction and on the other as too restrictive.

The two incumbents in the race this year are Mayor Don R. Griffin and Lester J. Reese. The other candidates are Donald Bone, who owns D.L. Bone & Sons Painting; Lee Connelly, a photographer, and Max Schulman, a consultant.

Bone opposed both the building moratorium and the corridor plan, saying the plan is as “clear as mud.” He said city officials are trying to “re-create Disneyland up and down Beach Boulevard” and called current approaches to development “antiquated.”

Connelly said that he, too, opposes the corridor plan and that business owners on Beach Boulevard should make their own decisions on how to upgrade their property. He said the size and scope of city government should be reduced, “placing as few restrictions as possible on how businesses coming into this town will operate.”

Max Schulman said the redevelopment policies of the current city leadership have driven business out of the city by “putting stumbling blocks in front of developers and by not encouraging them to stay.” Schulman also said the city should reduce its overhead costs, possibly by eliminating some city positions if that could be done without affecting services.

Griffin defended the council’s acceptance of the corridor plan and said few developments would be jeopardized by it. Griffin said that while the city depends on tourist-related business for survival, it need not allow “marginal and less-than-first-rate operations” to flourish.

Reese also defended the city’s actions and said redevelopment of commercial areas should continue. He said the new Office of Tourism and Conventions has been successful in generating increased participation by private enterprise to develop tourism.