2 Major Issues Still in Dispute Despite Vote in La Habra Heights

The losers in a rancorous special election last month have yet to yield their causes, keeping in dispute two key local issues in this generally placid little city.

City Council members--who would be limited to serving no more than two terms by a ballot measure approved in the Oct. 25 election--are questioning the legality of the term restrictions. Opponents of a road-widening project supported by voters are also questioning the election results and vowing to continue battling the proposal.

“We’re not certain whether the election will stand,” asserted Elmer Brackett, a leader of the anti-road-widening group that was behind two of the five items placed on the special election ballot. Brackett said his group, Maintain Our Rural Lifestyle (MORL), may challenge the election on several points, including the possibility that some residents with absentee ballots also voted at the polls.

Attorney’s Opinion

Reaffirming an informal opinion rendered before the election, the city attorney is advising the council that the term restrictions are not legally valid because the city’s ordinances are superseded by state law, which contains no such restraints. Assistant City Atty. Carol Lynch said her office is recommending that the city clerk allow council members to run in the next election, regardless of how many terms they have served.

The matter could remain unresolved until at least the spring of 1990, when two decade-long council members will be up for reelection. One of them, Mayor Gene Beckman, said the “vilification we were subjected to” in the special election campaign so soured him on local politics that he has no interest in running again. The other, Jean G. Good, indicated she never makes up her mind until the last minute.

“Every time I’ve run I’ve decided I wouldn’t run again and then I’ve run,” she said. Both Beckman and Good view the restrictions as unconstitutional prohibitions on the right to run for office. “I would like to go out on my own,” said Good, who, like Beckman, has been on the council since the city’s inception in 1978.

No Published Ruling

Although attorney Lynch said she could find no published state court opinion on the matter, she said the lack of restrictions in California law on the number of terms in office overrides any local prohibition, since La Habra Heights is a “general law” city in which state law takes precedence.

Brackett counters that the two-term limit, placed on the ballot by his group, was drafted by an attorney and will withstand any legal challenge. Supporters of the measure, which was approved by a vote of 934 to 881, argue that it is necessary to prevent entrenched incumbents from perpetuating their political kingdoms, while critics say it was the creation of malcontents unable to get their own candidates elected.

Brackett’s organization has raised several questions about the election, which drew an impressive turnout of 52% of the community’s approximately 3,500 registered voters. Along with the term restrictions, three of the ballot questions dealt with the proposed widening of Hacienda Boulevard, a winding 2-lane thoroughfare that cuts the Heights in half. The fifth item, an unrelated advisory measure which passed by a large margin, signaled voters’ endorsement of a proposed 520-acre golf course and housing development in the city’s northeastern corner.

Some May Have Voted Twice

Having combed voting records since the election, Brackett says the number of voters who signed registration books at polling places exceeds the number of ballots counted by the voting machine. Brackett also contends that the registration books indicate that residents who voted by absentee ballots may have voted at the polls as well.

To settle the absentee issue, Brackett says his group needs to examine the envelopes identifying those who used absentee ballots. City Manager Bob Gutierrez, who doubles as the city clerk, says those envelopes have by law been put under seal for six months, precluding him from showing them to MORL representatives.

Gutierrez, saying careful checks were in place to prevent anyone from voting more than once, is confident no such incidents occurred. As for suggestions of a discrepancy between the number of voter signatures and the machine count, the city clerk said MORL had not mentioned that to him. But he noted that on rare occasions, voters have been known to leave the polling booth without actually voting.

Even if the election results stand, Brackett said his group will pursue other, unspecified ways of stoping the widening of Hacienda Boulevard from two to four lanes. The rebuilding project, approved last year by the City Council, was the most volatile special election issue in this community of about 5,700.

Limit on All Roads

The MORL measure, defeated 1,028 to 819, would have limited the width of all the city’s highways to a size that effectively would have killed the council-backed rebuilding project. A second, advisory measure placed on the ballot by the council and approved 923 to 852, asked whether a 4-lane right of way should be established for the road. The final road measure, also written by the council, was crushingly defeated with only 93 yeas. It would have established a special, annual tax of $900 per parcel for 15 years to finance the road’s reconstruction on a 2-lane basis.

Arguing that Hacienda Boulevard is a dangerous and costly liability that must be attended to, the council says that by widening the road to four lanes, the city can obtain county, state and federal money to pay for the improvements. Leave the boulevard to two lanes, the council says, and the improvement bill will be up to the city.

MORL, which obtained more than 800 signatures to put its measure on the ballot, terms a 4-lane road an unnecessary blight on the community’s semi-rural character. Tossing claims back and forth with the council in a flurry of campaign literature, the group insisted state money would be available for a limited rebuilding of the road.

The tax measure, Brackett asserts, was nothing more than a scare tactic that succeeded in defeating a 2-lane improvement project. “It lost because of the empty threat, the untrue threat, of increased taxation,” he complained.