City Candidates’ Fates May Hinge on Growth Stand

Slow-growth sentiment is so widespread, politicians and political experts say, it could determine the fate of candidates for offices in many municipal elections this year, as the anti-tax movement did when Proposition 13 was on the ballot 10 years ago.

Major battles for city council and mayoral posts are shaping up in Irvine, San Juan Capistrano and several other cities, and the slow-growth initiative on the countywide June ballot is expected to focus attention on what already is a bellwether issue.

“It’s going to be a major issue in city elections because we intend to make it so,” said Tom Rogers, co-founder of Orange County Tomorrow, the group that drafted the initiative. “Every candidate is going to be asked to state his or her position. Those who choose the wrong side will lose. It’s that simple.”

National Concern

The emergence of controlled growth as a political issue is a phenomenon that is spreading throughout the United States, said Mark Baldassare, a pollster and professor of social ecology at UC Irvine.

Last November, in Fairfax County, Va., a suburb of Washington where traffic congestion has become a serious problem, slow-growth candidate Audrey Moore unseated Board of Supervisors Chairman John F. Herrity, who had led a pro-development majority on the board for 12 years. Moore blamed traffic jams on developments championed by Herrity and carried several slow-growth candidates into other county offices on her coattails.

Slow-Growth Bandwagon

In Orange County, most candidates at the local level will find some way to hop on the slow-growth bandwagon this year, regardless of whether they personally support controversial growth-limiting ballot measures, political consultant Harvey Englander predicted.

Assuming that voters approve the countywide slow-growth initiative overwhelmingly June 7, as expected, candidates in cities that don’t have elections until November will be intimidated by the June results, Englander said.

But he added that a politician who adapts his positions to the views of his constituents for the sake of political survival is not necessarily dishonest.

“Good elected officials are able to adapt to the environment around them,” he said. “They not only lead but also listen.”

Municipal elections in all but four of the 26 cities in the county are in November.

“It won’t have the same pervasiveness as Proposition 13 did in every city, but it will be an issue in council elections,” Englander said.

In 1978, Proposition 13, sponsored by tax rebels Howard Jarvis and Paul Gann, became the key issue by which voters judged candidates in a host of races. Some officeholders survived the wave of anti-incumbent feeling generated by the ballot measure, but many did not.

“The (slow-growth) initiative is a protest statement, and I’m for it,” said Hal Maloney of Irvine, one of two candidates who lost in the city’s 1986 council election to slow-growth candidates.

Maloney has taken out nomination papers to run June 7 in the city’s first-ever mayoral election, along with four other men, Larry Agran, John Coleman, Barry Hammond and Anthony G. Radovcich. In November, Irvine voters approved a measure that allows for direct election of the mayor.

“The task becomes one of sorting out the true believers from the phonies,” said Agran, the city’s current, council-appointed mayor and leader of the council’s slow-growth majority.

William A. Bloomer, former El Toro Marine Corps Air Station commandant, Michael Shea, Paula Werner, Sidney Warburton, Jacques Warshauer and incumbent Sally Anne Miller have taken out papers to run for three Irvine council seats in the June 7 election. So have Michael S. Duffy, Cameron Cosgrove and George E. Mertens. The filing deadline is March 11.

Agran predicts that the slow-growth initiative will be a major issue separating the candidates.

In Seal Beach, which has an election March 29, attention has focused on a growth-control ballot measure known as the Spring Initiative that is aimed chiefly at curbing the Bixby Ranch Co.’s plans to develop land along Seal Beach Boulevard north of the San Diego Freeway.

Incumbent Edna Wilson, who is critical of the Spring Initiative, is unopposed for reelection. Former Councilman Frank Lazlo, who is unopposed for a vacant council seat, has generally supported the measure, city officials said.

Wilson and Lazlo could not be reached for comment.

Both San Juan Capistrano and Los Alamitos have elections April 12, but the similarity ends there.

In San Juan Capistrano, a heated contest is expected for council seats held by incumbents Lawrence F. Buchheim and Kenneth E. Friess, who are seeking reelection. The challengers--Ilse M. Byrnes, David A. Hanson and Jean LaBurn--are split on the slow-growth issue.

A separate, citywide version of the countywide initiative has qualified for the ballot in San Juan Capistrano, but, over strong objections from initiative supporters, the council has decided to wait until November to place the measure on the ballot.

Buchheim, Friess and Hanson believe San Juan Capistrano doesn’t need the city initiative because the city already has a limit on residential construction. It became the first city in the county to adopt such a limit--400 housing units annually--12 years ago.

Byrnes said she supports the city initiative and expects growth controls to be an issue in the April 12 balloting. But she said the issue has not yet taken on the significance of Proposition 13.

That, Byrnes said, is partly because another issue--downtown redevelopment--is of more immediate concern to some San Juan Capistrano voters.

LaBurn and her supporters could not be reached for comment.

Not all politicians are frightened by the prospect of losing because they did not endorse the slow-growth initiative.

“I can’t go out and tell people I’m in favor of the initiative because I don’t think it pertains to our city, and if that costs me votes, then I guess I’ll have to live with it,” Buchheim said.

In Los Alamitos, slow-growth initiatives have not been an issue as such, candidates and city officials said, because the city is already built-out.

But growth-related issues have drawn considerable attention.

Los Alamitos Contest

Marianne Stiles, who with Anaheim Assistant City Manager Ronald Bates is challenging incumbent Councilmen Paul Bernal and Charles Sylvia, said she is campaigning against “over-commercialization.” She said there has been excessive development of so-called strip malls along Katella Avenue and Los Alamitos Boulevard.

It’s too early to know for sure who is going to run for municipal offices in cities that do not have elections until November, but groups are forming in those cities that are focusing on the slow-growth initiative.

For example, a group of homeowners in Anaheim says it will monitor the results of the June 7 vote on the countywide initiative to decide whether to take action in their Nov. 8 city election. And Englander, the political consultant, predicts that Anaheim will be one of the cities where candidates will be confronted by slow-growth advocates and forced to take a position.

Englander said he expects several cities to have contested elections in November in which the growth issue will be of Proposition 13 proportions: Costa Mesa, Fountain Valley, Cypress, Huntington Beach, Placentia, Orange and Tustin.

WHERE THE CANDIDATES STANDHere are the announced candidates so far in city elections this spring in Orange County, along with the positions they have expressed on growth controls.

Seal Beach Incumbent Edna Wilson Against Spring Initiative Frank Lazlo Unavailable Incumbent Paul Bernal Undecided Incumbent Charles Sylvia Unavailable Ronald Bates Undecided Marianne Stiles Supports slow-growth initiative Irvine Council Race Incumbent Sally Anne Miller Opposes slow-growth initiative Michael Shea Opposes slow-growth initiative William Bloomer No position Paula Werner Unavailable Sidney Warburton Unavailable Jacquee Warshauer Unavailable Michael Duffy Unavailable Cameron Cosgrove Unavailable George E. Mertens Unavailable Irvine Mayor’s Race: Larry Agran Supports initiative John Coleman Supports initiative Hal Maloney Supports initiative Barry Hammond Declined to commit himself Anthony Radovcich Unavailable San Juan Capistrano Incumbent Lawrence Buchheim Opposes initiative Incumbent Kenneth Friess Opposes initiative Ilse Byrnes Supports initiative David A. Hanson Opposes initiative Jean LaBurn Unavailable