She’s Not Running for Ms. Congeniality, Just City Council

If this keeps up, Susie Newman might start taking it personally. She might get the impression someone on the Huntington Beach City Council doesn’t like her.

Actually, she already has a pretty strong hunch about that. The lady is nothing if not savvy.

For the second time in two years, Newman has what seems like a perfectly logical argument for being appointed to a council vacancy. And yet, why does she have this feeling she has about as much chance as Mother Goose?

“I think it’s my personality,” she says.

How to describe the Newman personality? Here’s a campaign anecdote, provided by Newman herself, involving Paul Horgan, another of the 23 candidates in November’s City Council election. “Paul walked up to the house,” Newman said, “knocked on the door and said, ‘Hi, I’m Paul Horgan, I’m running for City Council.’ I said, ‘Hi, Paul, I’m Susie Newman, I’m your opponent and I’m going to kick your ass.’ ”

What some people find refreshingly humorous, others may find a bit off-putting.

More on Newman later, but first, her argument:

In 1992, Newman ran in a 14-person field to fill three spots on the council. She finished fourth. However, just a day after the election, longtime Councilman Jack Kelly had a stroke and died three days later, creating another vacancy. Newman argued that because an election had been held that week and she was the next highest vote-getter, she deserved the appointment. She also was a Kelly protege, of sorts.

The new council gave Kelly’s seat to someone else.

Newman ran again this year in the even larger field. Four seats were available, and, just as in 1992, she finished one spot out of the running. However, incumbent council member Jim Silva was elected to the Board of Supervisors that same day, creating a fifth vacancy. Just as in 1992 when Kelly died, Newman argued that as the next-highest vote-getter, she deserved the spot.

The council hasn’t made its decision yet, but even Newman describes her chances as “slim to none.” She says the council has tilted away from the pro-business orientation that she represents.

As in 1992, Silva favors Newman’s ascension to the council. He said Thursday that he thinks the council’s opposition to her is political, though, rather than personal. Newman disagrees. “I think it’s personal,” she said. “They just don’t like me. Why? I’ve been around long enough to have offended almost everybody.”

Newman is no shrinking violet. Although she says she watches herself in public, “Behind the scenes, I swear like a drunken sailor. That’s my right, unless the First Amendment also is outlawed here. I’ve been in some situations (around City Hall) where just the blatant stupidity and arrogance that they show is so appalling to me that I have been known to use a four-letter word to describe the situation. . . . It’s not against the law to have a feisty personality or to be vocal. That’s what America is about.”

I tried to contact Mayor Vic Leipzig to ask about Newman but couldn’t. When we talked two years ago about Newman and the Kelly vacancy, Leipzig conceded she had a logical argument but said he disagreed that the next-highest vote-getter automatically should get the appointment.

He’s wrong, but let me first offer a disclaimer. I’m a Huntington Beach resident but didn’t work on the Newman campaign or contribute to it. If you must know, I didn’t even vote for her.

But for the second straight time, city voters gave her strong support in crowded fields. In 1994, she finished only .3 of a percentage point behind Dave Garofalo, who won the fourth seat. With the Silva vacancy opening the same day, the council will have a tough time arguing that it isn’t defying the voters’ will in not giving the spot to Newman.

As Newman said of her snubbing in 1992, “Rather than abiding by a system that got them in office, they (council members) closed the door in my face. Now, how in the hell do you expect me to feel?”

Whether the council majority likes Newman or agrees with her politics is irrelevant. As Newman herself argues, had the vacancy occurred months after an election, she would have no particular claim to it. But voters have made it clear she was their fifth choice that day, and on that day, a fifth vacancy was created. No fancy math can rearrange that.

I asked why she tried again in 1994. “I’m not a quitter,” she said. “Your view is that I should not have done it, but I’m not most people. I’m me with my value structure and attitude, which says, ‘They knocked me on my ass (in 1992); it was unfair, it was unjustified, it was immoral, it was unethical, but it was legal.”

Newman said she submitted her request Thursday to be considered for the vacancy. She did it, she said, for “closure.”

So, you’re finished with politics, I asked.

“I may run two years from now,” she said, “and if I do, damn the torpedoes. I’m going to have some fun.”

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