TUSTIN : More Fuel Added to Battle Over Election

With more than $10,000 of city money already spent in legal battling over the April City Council election, the controversy maintains momentum.

On Tuesday, City Clerk Mary E. Wynn appealed a decision by a Superior Court judge. That judge had refused to order two councilmen to approve a city resolution necessary to hold the election.

Wynn sued the City Council on Feb. 26 after its four members deadlocked on the resolution, which provides for the location of polling places, the hiring of precinct workers and ballot counting. Her suit claimed that the state Election Code requires council members to adopt the resolution, usually a routine housekeeping matter.

Although Mayor Richard B. Edgar and Councilwoman Ursula E. Kennedy support the election and voted for the resolution, Councilmen John Kelly and Earl J. Prescott are opposed to April elections in principle and want to block the balloting.

Wynn’s suit claimed that a court order is necessary to carry out the election, but after a meeting of key city officials late Friday afternoon she issued an order establishing the election details.

Meanwhile, Prescott and Kelly, an incumbent in the election, are planning their own legal actions. Prescott filed a complaint in Superior Court last Thursday asking that the ordinance changing the election to April be ruled invalid.

Another action tentatively scheduled to be filed in court Thursday will incorporate that complaint and seek to prevent the April election, Prescott said.

Prescott and Kelly allege that only two legitimate council members attended the council meeting on Nov. 20 when the majority voted to move the election from November to April. The two councilmen boycotted that meeting on the advice of their attorney after unsuccessfully seeking a court order to prevent former Councilman Ronald B. Hoesterey from voting. They claim that Hoesterey had already moved from the city.

Edgar and Kennedy defend Hoesterey’s resident status at that time and the legality of the ordinance, but Prescott says the election being planned is a “lawless election.”