Backers Rally for Santa Ana Mayor Targeted in Recall

Supporters of Santa Ana Mayor Dan Young gathered Wednesday to reaffirm their confidence in the mayor and denounce his political rival, Councilman John Acosta, whom they accused of instigating the recall effort against him.

“We know how John Acosta operates,” said Kathy Rosenow, a local business owner and resident of the Washington Square neighborhood. “John Acosta wants to be mayor so badly that he will stop at nothing to achieve his goals.”

About 30 Young supporters, including members of the Chamber of Commerce, the French Park and Washington Square neighborhood organizations and the city’s service employees’ union, attended the press conference in the county Hall of Administration. Eleven speakers delivered testimonials to what they said was Young’s leadership in bringing Santa Ana back after a long period of urban decay.

“Dan Young is overqualified to be the mayor of this city. He would be an excellent assemblyman . . . and probably one of the best congressmen in this area,” said Ruben Martinez, owner of a downtown hair salon. “Some of these members of this recall group . . . all they do is complain. They don’t have any foundation, any significance and no substance.”

The recall effort was sparked by the council’s decision earlier this month to impose a contract on the city’s police officers’ union after almost a year of stalled negotiations. A group of residents that backed the police officers criticized Young and three other members of the council--Wilson B. Hart, Dan Griset and Vice Mayor Patricia A. McGuigan--for what the residents said was a sacrifice of public safety for city beautification.

Young is the only one of the four whose council term expires in 1990 rather than this November. He intends to run in November for mayor, however, in the city’s first election for that post. Acosta, who has never been mayor during his seven years on the council, is also running.

Manuel Gomez, assistant vice chancellor for academic affairs at UC Irvine, said the recall group was using “a bully club for what should be a fiscal discussion. . . . It is an erosion of our actual democratic principles.”

Gomez and others at the press conference said the recall process should be used in cases of malfeasance or when illegal acts are committed by officeholders, not when a group happens to disagree with a particular policy.

Acosta has publicly disassociated himself from the recall group, saying that he thinks recall movements interfere with the process of government. Young supporters pointed out that regardless of what Acosta says, Hal Gosse, his appointee to the city Redevelopment Commission and a coordinator of his mayoral campaign, was at the group’s initial meeting.

Claims by Young supporters that Gosse was ever on the steering committee of the group, however, were denied by Patricia Mill, a recall leader.