Catalano Won’t Seek Another Council Term

Irvine City Councilman Ray Catalano, a key player in the liberal, slow-growth council majority that has dominated city politics for the last two years, said Tuesday that he will not seek election to another term.

Catalano’s announcement was expected, and already nine people have taken out papers to run in the June election. Several are moderate to conservative candidates seeking to alter the balance of power in their city of 90,000.

The election may be the city’s costliest, political observers said Tuesday, because successful candidates may have to spend up to $70,000, double the figure just four years ago. Catalano, 41, who was appointed to the council in 1985, cited the high cost and door-to-door campaigning as major reasons for his decision.

Dreads Campaigning

“Campaigning would be excruciating because you would have to spend hours and hours answering the same questions over and over again,” said Catalano, who has never sought elective office.

“And I would have to ask people for money, and in the same breath tell them not to expect any favors in exchange.” Catalano also estimated that he would have to raise up to $70,000. “People who are politicians have the charisma and stamina to do that. I don’t.”

Catalano is a nationally recognized urban planner and professor at UC Irvine. He said the two days a week he spends on City Council business interfere with his university research.

Catalano also said he wants to spend more time with his 18-month-old daughter and his wife, June, who is director of planning and building safety for Santa Ana.

If Catalano had stayed in the race, the liberal faction made up of Mayor Larry Agran and Councilman Ed Doran would have stood a better chance of maintaining its slim majority, council members and political observers said Tuesday. Catalano would have run as an incumbent, and neither Agran nor Doran face reelection this year.

“Clearly this will change the nature of the challenge facing us because we will not have Ray as an incumbent,” Agran said. Moderate-to-conservative forces say they originally entered the June campaign at a disadvantage because the seats held by Dave Baker and Sally Anne Miller, who are considered more favorable toward growth than Agran, Doran and Catalano, are up for election.

Now, the equation has changed.

Robert Kiley, a conservative political consultant who is advising council candidate Michael Shea, said: “I see a good chance for the sensible-growth candidates to come out of this election with a majority because it’s a lot easier to win an open seat than one held by an incumbent.”

Miller said Tuesday that she hopes that her incumbency will be a plus as her campaign for a second four-year term begins. Baker is not seeking reelection so that he can run for the 40th Congressional District seat being vacated by Rep. Robert E. Badham (R-Newport Beach).

Though the filing deadline is not until March 11 and the election is three months away, the candidates are forming informal slates.

Catalano and Agran Tuesday threw their support to candidates Cameron Cosgrove and Paula Werner. Cosgrove is Catalano’s appointee to the city Planning Commission, and Werner is Agran’s appointee to the Irvine Transportation Commission.

Miller gave her support to Shea, her appointee to the city Finance Committee. Baker said he would announce later whom he will support.

But he said among those he was “sympathetic to because they have been supportive of me in the past” are William A. Bloomer, his appointee to the city Public Safety Commission, along with Shea and Councilwoman Miller.

Others who have taken out nominating papers, according to the Irvine city clerk’s office, are: Sydney Warburton, Jacques Warshaeur, Michael S. Duffy and George E. Mertens.