Contest Puts Friendly Foes on Their Guard

It was the municipal equivalent of a no-hitter in the bottom of the ninth, with Santa Ana Mayor Daniel H. Young’s team coming to the plate. On the field, a potential shutout within its grasp, was Anaheim Mayor Fred Hunter’s team.

But Young’s team connected for the long ball Tuesday, and suddenly the Anaheim club’s victory was no longer assured.

The analogy may be off base, because they won’t be playing baseball in a new indoor arena proposed for Orange County. But the competition to build the county’s first big-league sports dome intensified this week with news that a proposal from Santa Ana emerged to counter the carefully crafted package put together by Anaheim.

Orange County’s two biggest and oldest cities are longtime rivals. Now, the competition is for the status that goes with being hometown to a major indoor arena, which could host a professional basketball or hockey team--if the pros can be lured to Orange County--as well as dozens of other indoor sporting and entertainment events.

It’s a rivalry that’s not always relaxed.

Shove-It-to-Them Attitude

“We see each other at functions and acknowledge each other as a political courtesy, but we have a shove-it-to-them attitude,” Santa Ana Councilman John Acosta said of his city cousins to the north.

The politicians aren’t yet wearing numbers on their pinstripes, but a score card might help to follow the action.

At mayor for Anaheim is Republican Fred Hunter, 5-10, 170 pounds. Hunter is a former policeman and preacher. He said that he is friendly with Santa Ana but that Anaheim is just bigger and better.

“I think it’s kind of like we’re the big gorilla on the block, and they’re not,” Hunter said. “I don’t think there’s even going to be a race (for a sports arena) because we’re already 2 years ahead of them.

“I have to brag a little bit,” he added. “We are a dynamic city.”

Ha! Acosta says. “I think their dog-and-pony show is just about over. They better look out, because we’re nipping at their heels right now.”

At mayor for Santa Ana is Republican Daniel H. Young, also 5-10, 170 pounds. Young, a former congressional aide and now a developer, says he just wants to see another pro sports team come to Orange County, and he would prefer that it would be to Santa Ana.

“Orange County deserves to have a sports arena and a pro (sports) team,” Young said. “Sure, I think it would be a great boost for Santa Ana. . . . But if it comes to Anaheim, great, I’ll still attend. . . . We’re not going to get into a bidding war.”

Monday night, the Santa Ana City Council was briefed on a developer’s plans to build a sports arena in a business park at Edinger Avenue and Lyon Street. Young, for one, said he just learned early Monday that the proposal was ready to be made made public, although it had been talked about generally for years.

But it came as a complete surprise to most officials in the county and in Anaheim, where officials have been negotiating for such a complex for more than a year.

Last week, Anaheim offered the county $8 million to buy a site near Anaheim Stadium for the proposed arena. Supervisors are expected to vote on the offer, possibly as early as Tuesday.

They were still complaining Tuesday in Anaheim about the late hit.

“Just when we were about to wrap everything up, they blind-sided us,” Hunter complained. “They could have at least had the common courtesy to approach us.”

Anaheim City Councilman Thomas Daly said he wasn’t upset by the surprise, but he acknowledged that a “friendly rivalry” exists between the two cities.

“It’s competition for our arena project, and it tells me that we have to work harder and smarter to make sure that our arena is built first.

“We’re the two biggest cities in the county,” Daly said. “One is the sports and tourism center, the other is the county seat. There’s a natural, healthy rivalry for the leadership role in Orange County.”

Former Huntington Beach Mayor Jack Kelly said the competition between the two cities is fun to watch.

“I kind of enjoy what appears to be a sibling rivalry,” Kelly said. And although he isn’t saying which city he’d rather see win, he said he hopes one succeeds in getting an arena. After all, Huntington Beach is in the midst of redeveloping its old downtown, and that could include construction of “a gorgeous hotel on the beach,” he said.

“I think a lot of visitors will be staying here to go to a ballgame there.”

Before the sports arena, the battle between the two cities was over jails.

When county supervisors voted nearly 2 years ago to build a massive jail on Anaheim’s doorstep in Gypsum Canyon, Anaheim officials supported an initiative that would, instead, require that all future jails be built in Santa Ana. That initiative is scheduled for the ballot in June, 1990.

Staff writer Bob Schwartz contributed to this story.