Mailer From Recall Panel Found Legal : Politics: The mailer was part of a campaign that has forced a Mission Viejo city councilman to face a recall vote Feb. 27.

The recall committee trying to oust City Councilman Robert A. Curtis did not break any laws by sending a mailer that opponents attacked as deceptive, a prosecutor said Tuesday.

Citing insufficient evidence to prosecute, Deputy Dist. Atty. Wallace Wade said the Coalition To Recall Councilman Curtis did not break any laws last summer by mailing campaign material to voters in envelopes stamped “Official City Documents Enclosed.”

Wade said the mailer could be seen as misleading, but added: “Whether the intent was good or evil, it doesn’t matter because it wasn’t illegal. . . . There are no criminal penalties for what was on the outside of that envelope.”

The mailer was part of a successful petition drive that has forced Curtis to face a recall election Feb. 27. Recall proponents accuse the councilman of attempting a power grab in his efforts to annex Aegean Hills, a 583-acre section of land bordering Mission Viejo.

Sunnie Castner, the resident who filed the complaint in September, said she was “obviously disappointed” with the ruling.

“This goes to show that anybody can send anything out with ‘official city business’ on it and get away with it,” she said. “If they can misrepresent that to the entire public at large, what else can they be misrepresenting?”

Curtis called the decision “unfortunate. It’s too bad that a legal technicality relieves the coalition of responsibility to be honest and straightforward with the electorate.”

“Although the district attorney’s office cannot find any codes to prosecute, I think Mission Viejo voters will pass judgment on Feb. 27,” he said.

Coalition leader Helen Monroe said the envelope contained a copy of the recall petition that had been approved by City Clerk Ivy Sobel, making the mailer “a city-OKd document.”

In September the City Council took steps to disassociate itself from the mailer, although members declined to censure the coalition by a 3-2 vote.

“But the point,” Monroe stressed, “is that if there is no law against (the mailer), it is legal. That is what our attorneys told us before we sent it out.”

Castner called the mailer “a flagrant abuse” of campaign ethics. “I’m surprised nobody has done something about it already,” Castner said.

Wade said previous attempts to pass legislation to ban such tactics “have run afoul of the courts because of free-speech problems.”

“Any time you restrict a person’s right to speak, you have a potential violation of free-speech rights,” he said.

Wade said the phrase “official city documents” is a vague term. “It can mean all kinds of things,” he said.

The decision leaves two separate complaints pending against the coalition. One complaint, filed by the Mission Viejo city clerk’s office, alleges that the coalition used petition circulators who weren’t city residents. And earlier this month, the state Fair Political Practices Commission was asked by Curtis to investigate whether the Mission Viejo Co. is largely behind the recall movement and should be forced to list itself as a co-sponsor of the coalition.