Council Feels Heat From Tollway Foes in San Juan : Protest: 500 attend meeting to oppose San Joaquin Hills project. A recall campaign is threatened if officials don’t go on record to oppose it.

A crowd of 500 residents--some of whom threatened to launch a recall campaign against two veteran councilmen--voiced overwhelming opposition Tuesday night to the proposed San Joaquin Hills tollway.

Several residents demanded that the City Council conduct a “formal vote” to declare its position once and for all on the tollway or face the political repercussions.

“We want our council to go on the record opposing this tollway,” said Bob Davies, a San Juan Capistrano resident.

Carlos F. Negrete, a lawyer who lives in San Juan Capistrano, told reporters before the hearing began that he would call for the resignations of Mayor Kenneth E. Friess and Councilman Gary L. Hausdorfer because of their support for the tollway. Negrete also complained about the pair’s approving loans of taxpayer funds to City Manager Stephen B. Julian.

“It is an absolute misuse of public funds,” Negrete said of the city loans to Julian, adding that Negrete himself and other residents will circulate petitions to recall the two men if they do not resign “within 10 days.”

But during the hearing, Negrete said that he was not prepared to call for a recall Tuesday night. He said that if the council did not vote to oppose the tollway, “then I believe a recall election is in order.”

San Juan Capistrano residents have in recent weeks expressed dismay over the City Council’s handling of the tollway issue, arguing that it has failed to gauge public sentiments. They contend the council should have had a public hearing months ago so that residents could have voiced their feelings before the tollway agency shut off opportunities for public comment late last year.

Mark B. Clancey, president of the Friends of Historic San Juan Capistrano, argued that the council has never really held a public hearing--other than a pair of meetings in 1987 when the city joined the Transportation Corridor Agencies--”to determine if its constituency supported the concept of this corridor.”

“People have not had an opportunity to come in and give public testimony on whether or not they want their elected public officials to subscribe to the corridor,” Clancey said before the meeting. “We just haven’t been part of this process. We’ve been invited in too late.”

The crowd packed into the room at Marco Forster Junior High School appeared solidly against the construction of the $667-million tollway.

The road would break off from the busy San Diego Freeway at the south end of Mission Viejo and meander through existing neighborhoods in Laguna Niguel and travel through pristine stretches in the coastal foothills before linking up with the Corona del Mar Freeway in Newport Beach.

Plans call for no part of the 17.5-mile tollway itself to go through San Juan Capistrano. But a number of residents in the city have become concerned in recent months about the tollway’s effect on their community. As planned, the proposed six-lane road and the busy San Diego Freeway would meet just south of the community.

Hausdorfer, a commercial mortgage broker who has served on the council since 1978, did not attend the meeting and could not be reached for comment. Friess did attend and slammed his hands on a lectern when scattered members of the audience shouted “recall!”

In an interview earlier Tuesday, Friess again defended the loans extended to Julian as proper.

Negrete said that he decided to seek the resignations after reading a story The Times published Sunday that disclosed the five loans totaling $398,235 to Julian. The story also reported that Julian did not comply with repayment terms for three of those loans and that his most recent employment contract may free him from having to repay “any” of his outstanding debt to the city--$85,736.75--at no interest.

Julian, who did not attend, told The Times earlier that all of the transactions were proper and duly approved by his bosses--the council. Julian has attributed his difficulty in repaying some of his loan debt to turmoil in his marriage. He could not be reached Tuesday night.

In an interview, Negrete, 34, described himself as a Republican activist who believes the San Juan Capistrano city government is being run like a “country club.”

“It gets down to a real basis level: In whose interest is this tollway?” said Phillip Weissburg, a San Juan Capistrano resident who was among those hoping to speak Tuesday night.

“Those who would benefit” are developers and future residents not those now living in San Juan Capistrano, he said.