TUSTIN : Official’s Voting Rights Challenged

City Councilmen John Kelly and Earl J. Prescott plan to challenge Councilman Ronald B. Hoesterey’s right to vote at tonight’s council meeting, at which several controversial issues are scheduled for votes.

Kelly, Prescott and their attorney, Gregory Hile, said Hoesterey is no longer a legal resident of Tustin because he has sold his house in the city and bought one in Orange.

Hoesterey recently announced that he plans to resign because of his move. But he said Sunday that he is staying with his mother-in-law in Tustin in a house he owns, and is therefore a temporary resident.

“I am a citizen of Tustin. I have always been a citizen of Tustin. And tomorrow night I plan to vote at the City Council meeting,” Hoesterey said.

Hile said California’s Election Code states that a temporary residence in a city does not qualify a person to hold office there.

Among the issues scheduled for a vote tonight are the proposed shift of local elections from November to April and the regulation of news racks.

Hoesterey said he wanted to stay on the council long enough to cast his vote in favor of April elections. He, Ursula E. Kennedy and Richard B. Edgar support the change; Prescott and Kelly oppose it.

“The agenda is chock-full of business that could be handled at a later date,” Kelly said. “They want to ram it through while they still maintain a majority of three.”

The council also is scheduled to select a new mayor and mayor pro tem and consider Prescott’s suggestion that the offices be rotated; consider resident Berklee Maughan’s proposal to create a “problem resolution center” that would mediate matters involving city officials and residents; hold a public hearing on entering a joint powers agreement with Santa Ana to create a Transportation System Authority; approve a three-year contract for City Manager William A. Huston, and reconsider the cancellation of the Dec. 18 regular council meeting.