Anaheim : Candidates Zero In on Crime at Forum

Crime, and how to curtail it, was the primary topic Thursday as seven City Council candidates met in a low-key debate at a local business association luncheon.

Four of the six council challengers at the debate--Fares Batarseh, Frank Feldhaus, Manuel T. Ontiveros and Keith Olesen--told the Anaheim Assn. of Realtors that crime prevention needs to be a higher priority and called for diverting funds from other city programs to that effort.

Incumbent Tom Daly, who is simultaneously running for mayor and the council in the Nov. 3 election, and challenger Bob Zemel emphasized the need to cut city taxes and fees to help business. Challenger Todd E. Kaudy said the people need to work together to solve the city’s problems.

Incumbent William D. Ehrle and challengers Bill Fitzgerald, Phil Knypstra, Edward Skinner and Frank Turner did not attend.

Daly, a 38-year-old Building Industry Assn. executive, and Zemel, a 39-year-old mortgage banker, had the only sharp exchange during the debate. After Daly and Zemel both said they would cut taxes and fees because they are harmful for business, Zemel asked Daly why he had not pushed for a reduction of the city’s business license fee.

“There aren’t three votes on the (five-member) council to do that,” Daly said. “But I would listen to a proposal to reduce the fees.”

Zemel shot back: “You’ve had four years to do it.”

None of the other challengers went directly after the incumbents, focusing instead on crime-fighting proposals.

“My No. 1 main concern is the crime in our city,” said Batarseh, a 33-year-old bakery sales manager. He told the real estate agents that adding police officers and improving the city’s parks would decrease crime. “We need to have a safe city everywhere, not just in Anaheim Hills.”

Feldhaus, a 64-year-old business owner who finished fifth in the 1990 council election, said the city should divert some money being spent on the Anaheim arena and the Convention Center to the fight against crime.

“I’m not opposed to (the arena and center), but if the crime problem isn’t solved, the visitors will leave and neither one will make any money,” he said.

Olesen, a 40-year-old computer components salesman and the former chairman of the city’s Gang/Drug Task Force, said the city government seems to have forgotten that its purpose is to provide “basic services,” such as police and well-maintained streets for residents.

“It should not be dealing in a lot of peripheral issues for the gain or personal aggrandizement of city leaders,” he said.

Ontiveros, 18 and a recent graduate and student body president at Savanna High, said money needs to be spent on anti-drug and anti-gang education.

“We like to think of Anaheim as being the happiest place on Earth, but there are neighborhoods out there that are not,” he said.