SANTA ANA : City Rejects Idea of Keeping Swap Meet

More than an hour before the Rancho Santiago College Board of Trustees voted to form a joint task force with the city to discuss continuing the college’s embattled swap meet, the City Council rejected the idea at its own meeting on Monday.

College officials, who voted 4 to 2 to apply for a variance from a city ordinance prohibiting open-air markets in Santa Ana, want to move the swap meet from its current location at Bristol and 17th streets to Centennial Park.

But a majority of the City Council, which spent more than three years in court to win the right to shut down the swap meet, said they felt the park was an inappropriate location for a swap meet.

“We all have a sense of what the community wants,” said Mayor Daniel H. Young. “We want to be perfectly honest in our dialogue with the college.”

Councilman John Acosta, the only council member who favored a task force of neighborhood residents, swap-meet vendors, and city and college officials, said, “We’re turning our backs on this. We’re neglecting our duties as elected officials.”

Dozens of swap-meet vendors attended the Rancho Santiago board meeting to applaud its decision to apply for a variance. But several speakers asked the board to fight to keep the swap meet at the college instead of moving it to the park.

Board President Shirley Ralston said she felt the college had the best chance of succeeding with the variance if they applied for the Centennial Park location.

On Feb. 11, the college board voted not to appeal a decision made by an appellate court which ruled that the swap meet was in violation of city ordinances.

The meet continues to operate at Bristol and 17th Streets while the city awaits a court injunction that would force the swap meet to shut immediately, City Atty. Edward J. Cooper said.