DANA POINT : Anti-Recall Group Defends 2 Officials

A citizens’ group has been formed to oppose the recall effort aimed at two City Council members and to show support for the city’s controversial General Plan.

Forrest Owen, chairman of Dana Point United, said in a prepared statement read to the City Council on Tuesday said that the new group is autonomous and seeks only the “stability of representative democratic government.”

Owen criticized efforts to unseat council members Eileen Krause and Mike Eggers because they voted to approve the city’s General Plan.

“We urge Dana Point voters not to sign recall petitions currently being circulated,” said the statement read by John Kutschka, another member of the group. “Why punish elected officials for voting their conscience?”

But another group of residents, backed by local activists Bonnie Streeter and John D. Bowler, say Krause and Eggers should be ousted because they blocked attempts to hold a citywide referendum on the General Plan. Critics of the plan complain that it would turn Dana Point into a destination resort. Owen and the Dana Point United group counter that the seaside community has been a destination resort ever since Dana Point Harbor and the Ritz-Carlton hotel were built years ago.

Owen’s group says that the critics of the General Plan include a “small group of vocal individuals.”

“These dissidents have made rash and misrepresenting statements about the General Plan, and truth has simply fallen by the wayside,” he said.