Santa Clarita / Antelope Valley : Lancaster Drops Bid to Reschedule Election : Council: The change would have extended officials’ terms by 11 months. Three already face recall efforts.

In the wake of a recall campaign, Lancaster City Council members have abandoned their bid to reschedule next year’s city election and thereby extend their terms by 11 months.

Council members took the action unanimously Tuesday night, at least partly in an attempt to neutralize one of the issues touted by a group seeking a special election to remove three city leaders.

“This is a very misunderstood issue,” said Councilman George Runner, one of the targets of the recall. “I think this sort of clears the air out there.”

But a spokeswoman for the recall group, Concerned Citizens of Lancaster, said Wednesday its members don’t trust council members to stand by their decision.

“We are not suspending the recall because they did not set it in stone,” said Harriet R. Whitton. “We do not have confidence that they are going to hold to this. We believe that as soon as we disband, they are going to change the election to 1997.”

City officials acknowledged that Tuesday’s vote could be overturned at any time by at least three of the five council members.

City Clerk Barbara Howard said Wednesday that the group’s recall petitions have been certified, giving the group four months to collect at least 9,407 signatures from registered Lancaster voters for each of the recall targets.

Along with Runner, the group is trying to remove Mayor Frank Roberts and Councilman Henry Hearns.

Concerned Citizens’ primary issue is a lucrative contract extension for City Manager Jim Gilley. That contract was approved by the three now-targeted council members at a meeting on Nov. 7, with little advance notice to the public.

The election date squabble surfaced when recall proponents looked at other recent council decisions.

On Aug. 15, the council had given preliminary approval to an ordinance changing the city’s elections from even-numbered to odd-numbered years.

City officials said the change was needed because state lawmakers had moved up California’s presidential primary to March 1996--just two weeks before Lancaster’s next scheduled council election. The elections could not be merged because county officials, who administer the primary, do not allow city elections to be held on the same day as state and national elections.

Lancaster officials worried that voters would be too confused by having separate state and local elections two weeks apart, with different ballots and possibly different polling places.

In addition, city officials said a second election in the same year would cost the city more because county workers, who normally help with a local election, would still be tied up with the statewide results.

To avoid such conflicts, Lancaster officials proposed that local elections be moved to March of odd-numbered years. That would also allow current council members to remain in office for an extra 11 months.

In recent weeks, recall proponents have referred to the proposed term extensions whenever city leaders have urged them to save their grievances until the next regular election.

The recall proponents have said they did not want to wait, especially if council members planned to extend their terms until 1997.

Now that the council has discarded the extension proposal, the election will be held as originally scheduled in April, 1996. Unless a recall election before then changes the makeup of the council, Runner and Roberts will at that time be eligible for reelection.