School Blocks Production of Voting Message : Elections: Filming of announcement aimed at Latinos is halted at campus because actors were portraying poll guards.

A television public service announcement being filmed on a high school campus was halted Wednesday after Santa Ana school officials learned that the production--intended to encourage Latinos to vote--featured actors dressed as uniformed poll guards.

Executive film producer Jeffrey Green said school officials told his crew to stop filming at Santa Ana High School because they feared he was trying to re-enact a controversial 1988 confrontation in which poll guards hired by Republican officials were accused of intimidating Latinos who were attempting to vote in the general election.

The Wednesday filming, which had been previously approved by the school district, is being paid for by proceeds from a $400,000 settlement reached last year in a civil suit that five Latino voters filed against GOP officials. One of the precincts where guards had been posted was at Santa Ana High School.

Diane M. Thomas, a spokeswoman for the Santa Ana Unified School District, indicated that the filming of the public service announcement exceeded “the parameters” that were agreed on earlier.

“Our agreement was to allow them to use the front of the school and the foyer to film a nonpartisan public service announcement encouraging Hispanics to vote,” Thomas said. “We would not be willing to have the site used to espouse a political point of view.”

But Green and Latino activists familiar with the commercial said it was a nonpartisan production that did not support any political party or candidate.

“It was evident they (school officials) were upset about the guards and that it might be a re-creation of something that happened two years ago,” Green said. “I can say that this was not a re-enactment of anything that happened before. I did not know that this was one of the places in the poll guard case.”

The poll guard case stemmed from a decision in November, 1988, by Republican leaders and officials from the campaign of Assemblyman Curt Pringle (R-Garden Grove) to place 20 uniformed guards at polling places in predominantly Latino neighborhoods. Many of the unarmed guards carried signs that said it was illegal for non-citizens to vote.

After the five Latino plaintiffs reached their out-of-court civil suit settlement last December, they agreed to set aside $150,000 of the money for voter education and registration in Latino neighborhoods.

San Francisco attorney Joseph Remcho, who represented the plaintiffs, said Wednesday that the filming at Santa Ana High School was part of the public service campaign, scheduled to run on radio and television before the Nov. 6 election. One television commercial and several radio announcements are planned.

“One way or the other we are going to do that spot to encourage Hispanic voters to go to the polls and not be intimidated when they get there,” Remcho said. “My reaction is that you have to get the voters’ attention, and using the uniformed guards is a way of doing that. The guards are based on a factual event.

“I sure wish the school had chased away the original poll guards instead of the actors,” he said.

Remcho said the commercial was a nonpartisan “get-out-and-vote” commercial that will be paid for entirely from the settlement money. “The commercial does not recommend any political party or any candidate.”