IRVINE : Trial Ready to Begin on Measure D Issue

It’s been 18 months since Cameron Cosgrove was sworn in as a member of the Irvine City Council, but some residents still refuse to call him “councilman.”

One speaker at a council meeting last week strode to the podium and introduced herself to the staff, members of the public, Mayor Larry Agran, “members of the City Council and Mr. Cosgrove.” She leaned heavily on the “Mr.,” denying Cosgrove the title accorded his office.

From his seat, Cosgrove quietly burned.

“I feel like a victim,” he said later. “I really do.”

For Cosgrove and his foes, the question of whether he deserves a seat on the council comes to a head this week, as a long-awaited trial begins in Orange County Superior Court. Beginning Wednesday, plaintiffs in the case will argue that Cosgrove was seated illegally in July, 1988, and that he should be removed from office before he is allowed to enter the June 5 election as an incumbent.

Cosgrove and his allies retort that the lawsuit is purely political and is designed as much to hurt Agran as it is to clarify legal issues raised in the 1988 race that put Cosgrove into office.

That election, in which Cosgrove was the third-place finisher--less than 150 votes short of finishing second--had another item on the ballot. It has become the source of a bitter controversy in Irvine, and the issues and personalities revolving around it expose some of the city’s most tempestuous political disagreements.

That item was Measure D, a provision that voters approved at the same time they elected Cosgrove to the council and Agran to the mayoralty. The measure stated that the third place finisher in some council races--those with two seats open but a third vacated by a council member becoming mayor--could be subject to a special election if enough signatures were gathered to force it.

What Judge Claude M. Owens will have to determine is whether Measure D is binding on the same election in which voters approved it. Normally, measures of its kind only affect subsequent actions, but Measure D states that it shall “become effective with the General Municipal Election of June 1988.”

“The intent of the voters was clear,” said Howard Klein, an Irvine realtor who is one of the plaintiffs in the case. “What we’re asking is that the judge carry it out.”

An ardent champion of the case, Klein not only fights it in the courts--where he and his allies estimate that they have already spent more than $30,000--he also occasionally shows up at City Council meetings. Last week, he and the normally even-tempered Agran verbally tussled, demonstrating how high emotions have risen over the issue.

Klein blamed Cosgrove’s attorneys for delays in the court case, and Agran, a Cosgrove backer, defended his colleague. The two traded sharp words and then Agran shot out: “Mr. Klein, I would suggest that you do what you do best, which is to file frivolous lawsuits against this city.”

Disgusted, Klein marched away from the microphone.

Agran and his supporters view the case as an effort to discredit the mayor, who swore Cosgrove into office and who has consistently supported him. As they note, Klein is a prominent local Republican, and Agran a Democrat.

Cosgrove is a Republican, but Councilwoman Sally Anne Sheridan, a vocal Cosgrove opponent, openly mocks Cosgrove’s party affiliation. “If Cam Cosgrove is a Republican, I’m Karl Marx living in Woodbridge,” she said.

Even Klein, who denies that the suit is partisan, admits that it has a political edge. If successful, it would force Cosgrove to run without the benefits of incumbency this June.

And it would presumably provide ammunition to Sheridan in her effort to unseat Agran. Sheridan, observers agree, would spare few chances to accuse Agran of illegally seating his ally in 1988.

Even if Measure D is found to legally apply to the 1988 election, plaintiffs will have to overcome obstacles before deposing Cosgrove. There are, for instance, questions about the timing and manner in which their petitions calling for a special election were distributed.

But both sides have reached at least the semblance of accord on one point. All parties say they want the matter resolved quickly: plaintiffs so that Cosgrove will be stripped of his incumbency, and Cosgrove so that he will have time to rebound from the controversy before hitting the campaign trail.

“I really just want to get this over with,” Cosgrove said in an interview last week. “I’ve been caught up in the middle for too long.”