O.C. Candidates Decry Last-Minute Mailers : Politics: Opposing camps in several races complain inflammatory and inaccurate language is being used on flyers.

As city council and school board campaigns raced toward Election Day, a flurry of last-minute flyers in several cities from Yorba Linda to Mission Viejo has triggered anger in opposing camps and charges of gutter politics.

In Santa Ana, a city known for campaign “hit pieces,” mayoral candidate and City Councilman John Acosta expressed outrage over a last-minute campaign mailer suggesting Latino gangs will take over unless voters elect Mayor Daniel H. Young and his slate of council candidates.

The cover of the mailer, which was sponsored by the Santa Ana Police Officers Political Action Committee, shows Latino children holding rifles. Inside, the brochure shows older Latinos, described as gang members, also holding rifles. The text states, in part: “When their baby pictures look like these . . . this is how they grow up.”

Acosta and others who complained about the mailer called it inflammatory because it implied that all Latinos are gang members.

“If John Acosta would have put Anglo children in there and put hoods on them and put ‘KKK,’ don’t you think they would have come down on me real hard?” Acosta asked.

One of Acosta’s supporters, Veronica Maciel, who has five children ranging in ages from 3 to 14, said the brochure “was saying that instead of giving me a rattle, my parents gave me a rifle.”

Young and his political consultant, Dennis DeSnoo, said they did not know the contents of the brochure before it arrived in voters’ mailboxes Thursday, and said they had nothing to do with its inception or production. Candidates Lisa Mills and Tom Lutz, also on Young’s slate, said they didn’t know about the flyers until they received them in the mail. The fourth candidate on the slate, Glenn Mondo, could not be reached for comment.

Don Blankenship, the president of the police union which has endorsed Young, said the brochure was prepared by the union’s own political consultant, Debbie Fritz, and was intended to point out the rising number of gangs in Santa Ana, which now total at least 40.

The photos “should be shocking. They are shocking to the police officers,” Blankenship said, adding that they are pictures he has collected through the years. “They are shocking, but it’s not racism, it’s reality.”

Acosta said he did not believe that the union produced the campaign piece without the mayor’s prior approval.

“It’s insulting and horrible to say the least. At first, I wanted to get fighting mad over it, and yet you feel very sorry for the mayor because he has lost touch with the community. It’s fear and intimidation,” Acosta said.

Meanwhile, in Mission Viejo, about 25 people showed up at City Hall on Friday morning to protest what they called “dirty politics as usual in Mission Viejo.”

Supporters of Councilman William S. Craycraft’s reelection campaign decried a citywide mailer sent Wednesday that splashed the word “traitor” across a photograph of Craycraft, and they vented their feelings toward the piece’s acknowledged author, Councilman Robert A. Curtis.

The mailer criticized Craycraft for allegedly revealing closed-session information to vendors negotiating contracts with Mission Viejo and the city’s opponents in lawsuits. Craycraft was censured by the council on similar allegations this week.

Craycraft has denied that he released any sensitive information and called the council’s accusations a political ploy to defame him. The mailer was just another attack, he said.

“I think a majority of voters will see a vile hit piece for exactly what it is,” Craycraft said. “There is nothing at all accurate in there.”

The mailer is credited only to the newly created Taxpayers for Fiscal Responsibility. However, Curtis acknowledged this week that it was his creation. The $5,600 mailer was paid for by contributions from local businesses, he said.

Curtis stood by the contents of the mailer, saying that Craycraft betrayed the trust of taxpayers and potentially damaged city finances by giving out information that allegedly aided the city’s adversaries and competitors.

Elsewhere, campaign literature distributed by Jerry Brakebill, a candidate for the Placentia-Yorba Linda Unified School District Board of Education, includes a commendation from Supt. James O. Fleming, who claims the statement was used out of context.

About 18,000 door-hangers that were distributed in Placentia and Yorba Linda neighborhoods Wednesday identify Brakebill as a candidate and a former police officer in the district. Below the slogan “The Right Choice for Your Children” is printed this remark from Fleming, who is identified by name and as superintendent: “Jerry has done an outstanding job in working with the students, parents and schools, and has provided a significant impact on the children of our community.”

Fleming said the quote was lifted from a letter he wrote three years ago to Brakebill’s police chief regarding Brakebill’s performance as a DARE officer.

“It doesn’t look like it came from the letter,” Fleming said. “It looks like an endorsement.”

Brakebill acknowledged that the quote from Fleming could be interpreted as an endorsement of his candidacy but said that was not his intent. Information on the door-hanger was condensed from a brochure Brakebill sent out two months ago. In that brochure, the same quote appears, though it is correctly attributed to the letter Fleming wrote to Brakebill’s chief.

“We tried to get as much information from the brochure into the door-hanger, but the graphic artists eliminated” the attribution, said Brakebill, adding that even without the attribution he doesn’t see a problem with Fleming’s statement.

In Laguna Beach, members of the environmental watchdog group Village Laguna said they were outraged by an anonymous “impostor” mailer received by residents on Friday that says the group has changed its mind about endorsing City Council candidates Norm Grossman and Kathleen Blackburn.

The mailer, which changes the group name ever-so-slightly to “The Village of Laguna,” states: “New information has led us to reassess our endorsements.” The mailer goes on to to endorse a council candidate not previously endorsed by the group.

Village Laguna President Johanna Felder said the group has not changed its endorsements. “This is such dirty politics,” she said. “This was done to divert votes away from the candidates endorsed by Village Laguna. It’s extremely underhanded and dirty.”

The impostor mailer is virtually identical in format, wording and style as one sent by Village Laguna about 10 days ago endorsing Grossman and Blackburn for two open council seats. In addition to their views on the environment, the two were also endorsed because of their “slow-growth” stances, Felder said.