3 More Santa Ana Council Members Targeted for Recall

A fundamentalist group will seek to recall six of the seven Santa Ana City Council members for their refusal to sign a statement promising to ban a gay pride festival next month at a local park.

Three of the council members, Mayor Daniel H. Young, Patricia A. McGuigan and Daniel E. Griset, were given recall notices Monday night. Three others who did not sign the resolution were not included in that action.

But on Friday, the Rev. Louis P. Sheldon, leader of the Anaheim-based Coalition on Traditional Values, whose supporters are leading the recall campaign, said the other three deserve equal treatment and that recall notices will be delivered to them as well.

“This is a righteous call against the six of them,” Sheldon said.

The second three are council members Ron May, Miguel A. Pulido and Richards L. Norton.

Acosta Not Targeted

Only Councilman John Acosta signed the resolution. He is not being targeted for the recall.

Pulido said Sheldon was simply playing politics. Pulido and May were told on Monday that they were left out of the recall attempt because they will be up for reelection in November, 1990.

“This has been a tough issue and the people of Santa Ana will know we did the right thing,” Pulido said Friday.

Sheldon said the council members can stop the recall action by signing the first portion of his “pro-family” resolution, which states they support heterosexual relationships rather than homosexual ones.

Eases Festival Stand

In a change of heart, Sheldon said the council members can even ignore the bottom half of the resolution that calls for the banning of the Gay Pride Festival, now scheduled for Sept. 9 and 10 at Centennial Regional Park.

“The point is that we want them to take a stand on the family and they refused to,” Sheldon said.

The group has to get 11,043 signatures for each of the recall targets. Sheldon said he is convinced that his supporters will have no problems.

Norton was initially ignored by the group, thinking he was exempt from any recall because he has only been in office since April.

“If this group, many of them outsiders, wants to recall me for upholding the law, that’s their right,” Norton said in a written statement. “I have faith in the intelligence of Santa Ana voters. They know that if we give in and break the law this time, Mr. Sheldon or someone else will come back again and want us to break some other law that they don’t agree with.”