GARDEN GROVE : Light-Rail Backers Oppose Incumbents

Pledging to oppose all incumbents on the Garden Grove City Council in the November General Election, a local group favoring the establishment of a light-rail line through the city is getting ready to enter municipal politics.

According to Dennis Witcher, the 80-member Garden Grove Citizens Rail Committee has collected about 400 signatures on a pro-light-rail petition. And one City Council hopeful, businessman Bruce Broadwater, is being touted as a pro-rail candidate that the group may endorse.

The incumbents the rail group is targeting are Mayor W.E. (Walt) Donovan and Councilmen Raymond T. Littrell and Robert F. Dinsen.

The group formed after the city decided to purchase the former Pacific Electric right of way from the Orange County Transit District to clear the way for development of the property. The route runs diagonally through Garden Grove from the northwest to the southeast and once carried the storied Red Cars from Los Angeles to Santa Ana.

City officials maintain that only minimum development will occur along the former railway, leaving enough space to build a light rail line if one is approved by transit officials. The rail group fears that any development will keep Garden Grove from being on the route and that the community will suffer as a result.