Cypress Group Protests Support for Card Club

Several hundred residents confronted Mayor Gail H. Kerry and Councilwoman Joyce C. Nicholson on Monday night for supporting a proposed card club at the Los Alamitos Race Course.

Members of Cypress Citizens Against Card Club staged a rally before the council meeting then took their complaints inside, demanding that Kerry and Nicholson explain their decision to sign the ballot initiative in favor of the 24-hour gambling house.

“The council members’ statement of impartiality on the card club ballot Measure A at the Feb. 22 City Council meeting has not been upheld. Mrs. Kerry and Mrs. Nicholson have since signed ballot arguments in favor of Measure A. Why?” asked Mary Ann Jones, a member of the citizens group.

Kerry and Nicholson said they had the right to express their opinions on the club. Both also countered charges that they had promised to stay neutral.

“It is interesting that the only City Council members who are being attacked are those that support Measure A,” Kerry said, reading from a prepared statement. “I signed the ballot argument after studying all the issues very carefully. . . . I regret that some people believe that I--a public official--should remain silent while others can speak out.”

Added Nicholson: “All of us have our own opinions. . . . We never at any time stated we would stay neutral.”

On June 8, Cypress residents will go to the polls to decide whether to allow what could be Orange County’s first card club at the Los Alamitos Race Course.

Race course owner Lloyd Arnold and two of his partners have proposed to build the $30-million Cypress Card Club. Arnold argues the club would bring up to $12 million a year to the city’s budget and would provide an estimated 2,500 jobs.

Opponents counter that the club will forever change this bedroom community of 45,000 by lowering property values and bringing crime to their quiet neighborhoods.

In another development, club proponents have taken Cypress Citizens Against Card Club to court, claiming their ballot arguments are incorrect. The grass-roots group retaliated by countersuing. A hearing has been set for Monday to iron out the legal wrangling, just two days before the initiative is set to go to the printers.

Resident Roger Geyer, who filed the lawsuit, claims the rebuttal argument contains incorrect information, including the contention that crime will increase and that the majority of the jobs will be minimum wage. Geyer, along with card club proponents Jack Swank and council members Nicholson and Kerry, helped lead a grass-roots campaign several years ago to defeat a development plan at the Los Alamitos Race Course. The plan would have turned the golf course into a business park, thereby developing one of the last remaining areas of open space in the city.

“We think it is basically a scare tactic that is misleading,” said Geyer’s attorney, Brad Hertz, of Davidson and Reed about the crime statistics presented by the citizens group.

Members of Cypress Citizens Against Card Club charge that the lawsuit is an attempt to drain their limited funds and to divert voters’ attention from the real issues. Jean McKinzie, the chairman of the citizens group who said she got word of the lawsuit late Friday afternoon, said she fears their arguments will not appear at all on the ballot because it will be tied up in court.

“They are absolutely trying to stop our arguments and rebuttal from being on the ballot,” said McKinzie. “This should be decided by the voters, not in court.”

Attorney Darlene Allen, who is representing the group, said they have evidence to back their arguments and are preparing to fight. “If you want to nit-pick, 90% of their argument has no merit at all,” said Allen, who is not charging the citizens group for her work. “We just think this is a deliberate attempt to camouflage the real issue.”