LOCAL ELECTIONS / GARDEN GROVE CITY COUNCIL : Candidates Offer Variety of Remedies for Ailing Finances

The ranks of the Police and Fire departments are getting thinner, vacant fields acquired to attract businesses are lying empty and the city’s income is dropping.

The dozen candidates for City Council and four aspirants for the mayor’s seat in the Nov. 3 election generally agree that the city hovers near financial crisis. But their plans for getting the city through the troubled times vary.

Two four-year terms are open on the City Council, and neither incumbent is seeking reelection. However, current council members Frank Kessler, Mark Leyes and J. Tilman Williams are vying for a two-year term as mayor.

Leyes is running in midterm. If he is elected mayor, the new City Council would have 30 days to appoint a successor to fill his remaining two years of his council term, or to call a special election. The city has cut 53 positions from next year’s operations, including 14 police and six firefighters. And sales taxes will be about $2.5 million less than expected.

Some candidates say the city will have to scrimp but can make it through.

“You can’t tax any more,” said Martha Janet Anderson-Monroe, the owner of the Briar Patch Saloon and a City Council candidate. “The people are taxed out. There might have to be a cut in salaries.”

Leyes says the city might need to sell the Willowick Golf Course it owns in Santa Ana to raise cash for city operations. Council candidate Walter C. Wood Jr. agrees, but said he would use the money, combined with federal grants, to build homes for low-income people and senior citizens. He also wants to put an initiative before the voters to freeze rents in apartments and mobile homes, he said.

The failure in recent years of redevelopment efforts to help bolster the economy also has become a campaign issue.

About 40 acres of land near Garden Grove Boulevard have been vacant for years. Five developers who had contracts to build on the land all have backed out. The latest disappointment came recently when the Price Club chain announced it was dropping plans to build a store on the site.

Mayoral candidate Al Snook says he wants to construct a casino, hotel and restaurant at the site. Snook says the city is ripe for a casino that can pump $1 million in taxes a month into the city treasury and create 2,000 jobs, he said.

Council candidate Ho Chung proposes a large international trade and cultural center with about 15 foreign countries developing pavilions there.

Fellow candidate Bruce A. Broadwater claims that redevelopment efforts in recent years have resulted only in a “land bank” operation with too much property being taken off the tax rolls.

He said officials should focus on commercial aspects along Harbor Boulevard and not on Garden Grove Boulevard and the downtown area.

Kessler said that “tremendous infighting” and unstable conditions on the council make it hard for developers to plan projects. They also never know if they will get final approval, he said.