SANTA ANA : Group’s Bid to Recall City Officials Fails
An effort to recall City Council members Daniel E. Griset and Patricia A. McGuigan because they refused to sign a resolution against a gay pride festival failed Monday for a lack of signatures on petitions, officials said.
To qualify the recall for a special election, organizers needed to collect 11,040 signatures by 5 p.m. Monday for each of the two recall petitions, city officials said.
One of the organizers, Ralph Freeman, declined to comment on how many signatures were collected.
Griset said he expected the recall effort to fail.
“The results were met without surprise,” Griset said Monday.
Last August, members of the Santa Ana Coalition on Traditional Values, an offshoot of the Rev. Louis P. Sheldon’s fundamentalist group, launched a recall effort against six Santa Ana council members who refused to sign a resolution tto ban the county’s first Gay Pride Festival. John Acosta was the only member of the council to sign the resolution.
The coalition later dropped its efforts against Mayor Daniel H. Young and Councilmen Ron May, Richards L. Norton and Miguel A. Pulido Jr. because they face reelection in November. The coalition then concentrated on Griset and McGuigan.
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