Wieder Served Recall Papers by Advocates of Slow Growth

Slow-growth advocates served Supervisor Harriett M. Wieder with recall papers Monday, charging that her votes in favor of development agreements and opposition to Measure A on the June ballot constitute “dereliction of state-mandated duty” as an elected official.

Wieder, who is seeking the Republican nomination in the 42nd Congressional District, replied that the recall was “a blatant political move” intended to harm her candidacy.

The papers, served by Huntington Beach resident Doug Langevin, formally advise Wieder that petitions will be circulated to remove her from her 2nd District supervisorial post.

Wieder, 67, is the second supervisor to be threatened with recall as a result of the board’s development policies. On May 11, slow-growth organizers served papers on Supervisor Thomas F. Riley, accusing him of similar “dereliction” for his support of development agreements.

Wieder has seven days in which to file a formal response to the allegations with the registrar of voters. Recall proponents then have 160 days to collect the signatures of 10% of all registered voters in Wieder’s district. If the approximately 20,000 valid signatures are collected quickly enough, the matter could appear on the November ballot.

After her meeting with Langevin, Wieder issued a statement asserting that development agreements--through which the county obtains promises of road improvements and other improvements from builders in exchange for a pledge that zoning and other land-use restrictions will not be changed by future boards--alleviate traffic problems in the county.

Instead of developers, Wieder said, the county’s transportation ills should be blamed on figures ranging from former Gov. Edmund G. Brown Jr., who left office in 1983, to unnamed present-day adversaries of Gov. George Deukmejian.

“God help me, no one, but no one, is going to stop me from continuing to seek workable solutions to this (traffic) problem,” Wieder said. “Let them heckle, let them sue, let them attempt to recall.”

Langevin said that his efforts were quickly gathering support.

Latest Setback for Wieder

The recall movement represents the latest setback in a year that had augured well for Wieder. After assuming the chairmanship of the Board of Supervisors in January, Wieder quickly emerged as a likely successor to Rep. Daniel E. Lungren (R-Long Beach), who is relinquishing his 42nd District seat to pursue his disputed appointment as state treasurer.

But questions of Wieder’s veracity and of her consonance with constituents’ views on development issues have emerged in recent months.

Wieder’s official biographies have falsely claimed that she received a bachelor’s degree from Detroit’s Wayne State University. And it was disclosed recently that she had stated under oath within the last year, during a deposition in a lawsuit, that she possessed such a diploma.

She has admitted the lie, saying she perpetuated it because of her shame that her family could not afford to send her to college.

And in a year when residents have succeeded in placing on the ballot an initiative to limit growth over the opposition of the supervisors and the powerful Building Industry Assn., Wieder has remained a close ally of developers.

That alliance prompted a charge that Wieder violated the 1977 ordinance known as TIN CUP (Time Is Now, Clean Up Politics) by accepting a $2,500 contribution in March from a political action committee associated with the Irvine Co. and then voting for a development agreement involving one of the firm’s projects.

The author of the TIN CUP ordinance, Shirley Grindle, filed a complaint with the district attorney alleging that the contribution from the Irvine Co. Employees Political Action Committee should have barred her from voting on any matter affecting the firm.