ANAHEIM : 12 Candidates File for Council Election

City Councilmen Tom Daly and William D. Ehrle are among the 12 candidates who have filed nomination papers for November’s council election.

Frank Turner, a Los Angeles County fire captain, and Bill Fitzgerald, a U.S. Army aviation specialist, also announced their candidacies shortly before Friday’s nomination deadline.

The top two finishers in the Nov. 3 election will win council seats.

Turner, 45, a newcomer to Anaheim politics, said he is running as a “concerned citizen,” but he said there are no particular issues that he is stressing.

“I can’t stand back and address the issues until I know what they are all about,” Turner said. “That is the problem with a lot of politicians--they say things without knowing all they need to know.”

Attempts to reach Fitzgerald on Monday were unsuccessful.

However, in a candidate’s statement he filed with the city clerk, he called for a 10% city tax on Disneyland tickets and ripped into the city’s relationship with the amusement park.

“If elected, I will vigorously pursue criminal investigations against all city employees and councilpersons who have illegally received monetary benefits from the Disney company . . . (and the) immediate termination of any and all city employees who attended any Disney-sponsored overnight drinking parties,” he wrote.

Fitzgerald’s statement appeared to address revelations last spring that Mayor Fred Hunter and Councilmen Irv Pickler and Bob D. Simpson had each received more than $250 in free tickets from Disney and, under state law, were barred for one year from voting on issues dealing with the park. Hunter’s ban has expired, but it remains in place for Pickler and Simpson.

Meanwhile, Daly, who is also running for mayor against the incumbent Hunter, is seeking his second four-year term. Ehrle won a 1987 special election before being elected to a full term in 1988.

Other challengers who have announced their candidacies are Fares Batarseh, a bakery sales manager; Frank Feldhaus, a telephone service agent who finished fifth in the 1990 council election; Todd Kaudy, a first-year law student; Phil Knypstra, a community college business professor and frequent council critic; Keith Olesen, a computer components salesman and former chairman of the city’s gang and drug task force; Manuel Ontiveros, an 18-year-old Savanna High School graduate; Ed Skinner, a local business owner; and Bob Zemel, a city planning commissioner and mortgage broker who finished third in the 1988 council election.

Three people took out nomination papers but did not return them to the city clerk’s office by the Friday deadline. They are: Melvin A. Aguilar, a founder of the Set Free Church; Donna D’Annella, an assistant bakery manager, and Gregory Ramsey, a health care manager.

The 12-candidate field is about average for an Anaheim council race. Seven candidates ran in 1990, 11 in 1988. The 1987 special election drew 12 candidates, while 14 ran in 1986.