Santa Ana Council OKs McGuigan Remap

The Santa Ana City Council on Monday adopted a plan to redraw the city’s ward boundaries, creating two new wards on the city’s west side and two large wards across its northern and southern ends.

The council voted 6 to 1 to adopt the plan submitted by Vice Mayor Patricia A. McGuigan. Councilman John Acosta, who had submitted an alternate plan, cast the dissenting vote. The council action came at 11 p.m. Monday, after an earlier vote on the prevailing plan had ended in a 3-3 deadlock.

In the earlier vote, which came after a brief public hearing, Acosta and council members Ron May and Miguel A. Pulido Jr. voted against McGuigan’s plan.

Councilman Dan Griset, who supported the McGuigan plan, arrived at the meeting just after the first vote. But a fifth vote was needed for passage.

In the second vote, May and Pulido switched their positions without elaborating.

Earlier, Pulido had said, “I kind of like Plan A (Acosta’s plan) better because it’s more consistent with (existing ward boundaries) . . . but I’m not married to either one.”

The council must reduce the number of wards from seven to six in accordance with a City Charter amendment passed by voters in November, 1986. Under the new system, the mayor will be elected by popular vote rather than by council members, maintaining a total of seven council representatives.

Determining Challengers

The six-ward plan will take effect with the November election. Many potential council candidates have been waiting for the redistricting because it will determine who their opponents will be. Santa Ana council members must live in the wards they represent, but they are elected citywide.

McGuigan’s plan alters the city’s current ward boundaries more significantly than Acosta’s would have. It divides McGuigan’s current district--most of the city west of the Santa Ana River--at 1st Street and extends both new wards eastward.

A few western residents objected Monday night to the proposed division of their neighborhood. “I have lived in Ward 7 (McGuigan’s ward) since I have been in Santa Ana, and it has always been west of the river,” Patricia Mill said. “I have nothing in common with the people in downtown Santa Ana.”

McGuigan, however, said maintaining the integrity of several neighborhoods throughout the city was her plan’s foremost goal. “I didn’t just pull some numbers out of a hat,” she said. “I had some logic to what I was doing.”

McGuigan’s plan places a likely opponent--coincidentally, she said--in another council member’s district.

John Raya, a resident of west Santa Ana who for the last two years has been outspoken in his opposition to many council policies and is involved in an effort to recall Mayor Dan Young, said he had been strongly considering a run against McGuigan when her term expires in November. But McGuigan’s map places his home in the same ward as council member Griset.

Griset, the son of former mayor Lorin Griset and a former mayor himself, will also be facing reelection. Raya said he has not ruled out running against the scion of the city’s preeminent political family.

“The issues don’t change,” Raya said. “I don’t think it will be a good year for incumbents, anyway.”

McGuigan said a possible Raya candidacy played no role in her decision to redraw the ward boundaries as she did. “I know I’m going to have an opponent one way or another.”

Raya and other opponents of McGuigan’s plan also criticized what they said would be creating two so-called “super wards” at the northern and southern ends of the city.

“Ward 3 (located mostly north of 17th Street) is not only affluent, the voter turnout is quite heavy in that ward,” said Raya, arguing that political power would be concentrated in such wards.

McGuigan’s plan carves up Acosta’s current ward and places much of it--including Acosta’s home--in the ward of Councilman Wilson B. Hart.

But Hart and Acosta are unlikely to square off for the same seat in November. Acosta has already said he will run for mayor, leaving Hart to take on challengers that would surface from the city’s economically and politically most powerful ward, now located, for the most part, north of 17th Street.

Acosta’s plan would have eliminated the ward of Griset, a frequent rival of Acosta on the council. Acosta maintained that his plan adheres more closely to natural boundaries, such as the Santa Ana Freeway and the Santa Ana River.

Young has said that he too will run for mayor in November. His council seat does not expire until 1990, so a special election would be held if he won the mayoral race or if the recall effort is successful.