Rhetoric Heated in Westminster Recall Election

His lunch untouched on his desk, his conversation punctuated by gulps from a bottle of Maalox, City Councilman Tony Lam last week contemplated the two-edged nature of his status as the first Vietnamese American ever elected to public office in the United States.

Lam’s voice filled with pride as he recounted his early struggles in this country, his days pumping gas, his successes as a councilman, his efforts now to be a worthy role model for young Vietnamese Americans. Then his eyes misted.

“I don’t want to be the first to get kicked out of the office,” Lam said, his tone urgent as he leaned across a cluttered desk in his Little Saigon campaign office. “That would be the most embarrassing thing. I bear the distinction of being the first elected; I don’t want to have that distinction, too.”

The 57-year-old Lam is one of four Westminster City Council members targeted in a bitter, costly recall effort spearheaded by the city’s firefighters, who contend that the council’s budget cutting has left them unable to adequately protect this city’s 81,000 residents.

In their latest campaign broadsides, the firefighters also say they are motivated by a desire to rid the city of politicians they describe as corrupt, including Lam, a restaurateur and longtime activist in the Vietnamese community here.

“The way the council votes is by campaign contribution,” said Mike Garrison, a union director and recently dismissed captain in the Westminster Fire Department. “I can’t help but think that’s not honest government.”

Lam and the other recall targets--Mayor Charles V. Smith and council members Charmayne S. Bohman and Craig Schweisinger--scoff at the fire-safety issue and vehemently deny the allegations of corruption, which they say are baseless.

Instead, they argue, the recall stems solely from a decision by the firefighters union to resist a council-inspired reorganization of the Fire Department last year that slashed costs and helped bring spiraling overtime charges under control.

“It’s a power struggle,” said Smith, who has been mayor since 1988. “The statewide fire union wants to take over this city, and we’re not going to let them. It’s as simple as that.”

Bohman, the subject of a recent attack piece by the recall group, criticized the negative campaigning. “I just think they’ve done everything they can to try to discredit us,” she said. “I don’t know of any way to defend oneself against these negative attacks.”

Schweisinger could not be reached for comment last week.

With nine days left before the June 7 election, the campaign has turned increasingly ugly. The firefighters and their political consultant have shifted from an emphasis on public safety to their current focus on allegations of corruption.

The union leaders have distributed lists showing political contributions to the targeted council members in an attempt to link donations from prominent local businesses to past council votes.

But Phil Giarrizzo, the political consultant working for the recall group, said the matter has not been raised with the Orange County district attorney’s office. And he appeared a little uncertain of exactly what the statements might show.

“What does it prove?” Giarrizzo asked rhetorically. “I don’t know, but it doesn’t look good.”

The firefighters also have alleged--inaccurately, according to the Fair Political Practices Commission--that the four city officials violated state law by not listing business interests, property or income earned outside Westminster on their financial disclosure statements.

“If the business, income or property is not located within the jurisdiction they’re serving, it’s not a problem,” commission spokeswoman Jeanette Turvill said.

Alan C. Davis, the union’s attorney, asserted last week that the FBI is now investigating the union’s allegations that city officials were motivated by political retribution in dismissing six firefighters earlier this year. The issue is the subject of a federal civil rights lawsuit filed by the union in April.

Special Agent Gary K. Morley, identified by Davis as the agent involved, said he could not comment on whether an investigation has been opened. Mayor Smith said he was not aware of any such probe.

The corruption allegations have even swirled into the office of the weekly Little Saigon News, whose editor, Brigitte Le, said that Lam last year told her that firefighters had set an arson fire that did $25,000 damage to the newspaper building.

Lam adamantly denied that he had made such a comment. “I have to be smart enough not to touch that controversial issue,” he said.

Le said she later came to believe that both sides had tried to use the fire at her office to further their political agendas. “I think I got in the middle of their fight,” she said.

A firefighter whose name Le could not recall talked to her after the fire, stressing that the council’s budget cuts could make it difficult to fight similar fires in the future. He later returned and gave her a $150 check from the union to help with the repairs to her office, she said.

Le, who has frequently criticized Lam in print on U.S. relations with Vietnam, nevertheless backs him in the recall and has urged her readers to support him.

The current political struggle has its roots in a long-running conflict between the firefighters’ union and the City Council. The acrimony escalated last fall when the council voted to eliminate the positions of five firefighters and removed one firetruck from service.

Firefighters union leaders say the cuts have endangered the public. “They’re playing politics with people’s lives,” Garrison said.

City officials respond that the cuts have had no effect on fire protection. In fact, they say, the reorganization of the Fire Department has actually made paramedic and ambulance service more effective, a contention the firefighters dispute.

Armed with an independent review of the Fire Department’s payroll practices by the auditing firm KMPG Peat Marwick, the city in January accused several firefighters of fraudulently collecting thousands of dollars in overtime payments.

Since then, city officials have dismissed six more Fire Department employees, including Garrison and four others this month for alleged payroll abuses. In February, union President Paul Gilbrook was fired over allegations that he improperly claimed sick leave and drove a fire engine with a suspended driver’s license.

The former employees have denied wrongdoing and will try to win their jobs back.

Meanwhile, the cost of the political slugfest is soaring. Already, the two sides have poured more money into the campaign than has been spent on any previous ballot measure in the city’s history, according to City Clerk Mary Lou Morey.

Campaign spending reports filed with the clerk’s office last week showed that the group behind the recall, the Westminster Citizens for Responsible Government, has spent $86,697 so far, about $35,000 more than those supporting the targeted council members.

The pro-recall group reported receiving $49,000 in contributions during the latest reporting period--all of it from the firefighters’ union. It has spent about $31,000 more than it has taken in to date, the reports showed.

The group fighting the recall, the Westminster Citizens and Taxpayers Against City Council Recall, reported spending $51,792 and receiving contributions of $56,551 so far. The contributions included loans from the council members’ election committees and donations from individuals and companies doing business in Westminster.

The last successful recall of a city official in Orange County was in 1989, after Fountain Valley City Councilman Fred Voss pleaded no contest to soliciting a prostitute.

Smith said he and the others estimate that they need to raise $85,000 to fight the recall. And he said the higher level of spending by the firefighters leaves little doubt about the significance they attach to the election.

“It’s pretty obvious that this is a test case for the national fire union on how a city can be taken over by a union,” Smith said. “Why else would they be spending this kind of money?”

But Garrison said there is nothing sinister about the money and other support the union has received from firefighters around the state, including an estimated 500 who flocked to the city last weekend to walk precincts.

“This is an issue of public safety and public corruption,” he said. “When public officials place that safety in jeopardy, firefighters from all over the state are going to stand up and say that’s wrong. And that’s what’s happening.”

Dr. Stan Hirsch, the leader of a group of mobile-home residents supporting the council members, disagreed. Seated in Lam’s Little Saigon office last week, Hirsch said he resented the idea of firefighters from around the state traveling to the city to lobby its residents.

“If anybody believes we need outside people to come in here and tell us how to run our city, they’re wrong,” he said.

Across the room, Lam nodded approvingly. He said he was grateful for the support of many like Hirsch who are not from the city’s Vietnamese community.

Lam slumped in his chair, speaking wearily of the difficulties involved in fighting the recall, the frequent precinct-walking, the struggle to defend himself and the other council members from each new allegation, the battle to drum up support from the Vietnamese community--not only for himself but for each of those targeted.

“If I am recalled, really it would be very beneficial for my family,” he said, adding that he could help his wife much more than he has lately in the operation of their three restaurants.

“But then it would take 5, 10 more years for anybody else, any other Vietnamese, to join in the political process here. I think that’s a big loss. I have to fight this, and I will fight to the end of my career.”