ELECTION ’90 DIAMOND BAR : Anonymous Flyers Heat Up Council Race

A black-and-white flyer exhorting readers to “Join the Frank Hill Paul Horcher Team” and vote against an incumbent City Council candidate caused tempers to flare at a recent candidates forum.

The flyer, anonymously circulated before a forum Monday night in the Diamond Bar branch of the Los Angeles County Public Library, attacks Councilman Gary Werner and endorses candidates Cleve Holifield and Garry Stitt. Voters will decide April 10 among nine candidates for three seats on the council.

While no one claimed responsibility for the flyer, some were quick to point fingers at each other. Although none of the candidates raised the issue publicly at the forum, several confrontations took place during an intermission and after the event.

Werner, who found a stack of them on a table where other candidates had displayed campaign literature, accused Mayor Phyllis Papen of distributing them.

After the event, Werner said he believed Papen, who is not up for reelection, was retaliating against him because he refused to support her for a second one-year term as mayor. The mayor is chosen each year by the City Council.

“I wouldn’t support her. She said, well then, she won’t be supporting me,” Werner said.

Papen denies responsibility for the flyer. “I did ask for his support and he did turn me down (but) that has nothing to do with anything else.” Papen said Friday she is endorsing Councilman John Forbing and candidate Jay Kim, but is not supporting a third candidate.

“I told (Werner) last night I had nothing to do with it,” she said Tuesday afternoon. “It is frustrating that people can make accusations without any evidence. Where’s the beef? Where’s the proof?”

In turn, Forbing and Councilman Gary Miller said Monday night that Councilman Paul Horcher may be the culprit. On Tuesday, Papen concurred.

Horcher was ousted as mayor pro tem in February after a falling-out with Miller, who at the time was running for a state Senate seat against Assemblyman Frank Hill (R-Whittier). Horcher is a long-time ally of Hill and is running for Hill’s assembly seat. Hill has not endorsed a candidate in the council race.

“Paul said he’d get back at us,” Papen said. “He vowed to replace the incumbents.” At the Feb. 6 meeting when he was removed from the post of mayor pro tem, Horcher urged members of the audience to “sweep them all from power.”

But Horcher denied the charge: “I didn’t have anything to do with it, directly or indirectly.”

The flyer criticizes positions Werner has taken on issues such as waste treatment, traffic, business signs and the proposal for a University of California campus in Diamond Bar. It states, “Diamond Bar can’t afford four more years of Gary Werner” and is attributed to the Diamond Bar Voters to Elect Cleve Holifield and Garry Stitt, which is not a registered group at City Hall, according to Deputy City Clerk Tommye Nice.

Stitt and Holifield, who are both endorsed by Horcher, said they know nothing about the source of the flyer. Other candidates in the race are Gregory Gaffney, Thomas Ortiz, Jim Paul and Bryan Thomas.