Cypress Voters See Dawning of a New Rage : Politics: Recall efforts target three council members and Assembly Speaker Doris Allen, bringing increasing rancor to the formerly placid community.

This pleasant town of 45,000 slumbered for decades on the northwest edge of Orange County, enjoying its relative obscurity.

For the past two years, though, Cypress--a bedroom community that takes no offense at that moniker--has been far from sleepy politically. In an eruption of voter discontent, residents are resolving their differences not at City Hall but in turbulent special elections.

“It’s a civil war,” longtime resident Reynold Elkin said at a recent City Council meeting, and there is no truce in sight.

In 1993, city residents raged over a City Council proposal to allow a card club in town. The issue was put on the ballot as a referendum, and it was trounced by voters. Now the community is being ripped apart by a series of recall efforts--three aimed at City Council members and one targeting new Assembly Speaker Doris Allen (R-Cypress).

Recall petitions circulate virtually daily in the city. Residents favoring recall find chilled relations with those who oppose it, and instant political debate ensues at the mere mention of Allen, who on June 5 was elected Speaker by Assembly Democrats and got only one Republican vote: her own.

“The community is being torn up by this, and I think it’s going to get even uglier,” Cypress Mayor Cecilia L. Age said.

Age, Councilwoman Gail H. Kerry and Councilman Walter K. Bowman are targets of a recall effort in progress. They drew citizens’ wrath by voting Sept. 26 for a large carpet warehouse to be built near Valley View Street and Orangewood Avenue. Residents argued that it would ruin the neighborhood.

That council vote triggered the current hostilities, but recall advocates contend that the issue isn’t only the warehouse.

“The council members should be recalled because they are arrogant and refuse to listen to the people,” said Bob Pepper, president of the Cypress Recall Committee.

To that, Bowman has a rejoinder: “It’s not that we didn’t listen. We did listen. We just didn’t agree with their point of view.”

City Council meetings before Sept. 26 were typically short, orderly and sparsely attended by the public. But after the warehouse vote, meetings became longer, more tense and increasingly punctuated by acrimony. Queues of anti-warehouse speakers formed as residents waited to take the podium and denounce the council.

Then a countermovement developed. Residents who support the proposed warehouse also began rallying at council meetings, with friction between the two sides sometimes spawning glares across the room and even insulting language.

At one council meeting, after several anti-warehouse residents from south Cypress spoke, a pro-warehouse advocate came to the microphone. “I’m not with this trash from south Cypress,” she announced. She refused to apologize when the south Cypress residents said they were insulted and appalled.

Bitter exchanges also erupted recently when the City Council passed a resolution congratulating Allen for being elected Speaker.

“How can you speak for all the residents of Cypress on something like this?” resident Kathy Simcox asked the council. “People want to recall Doris Allen.”

Council members said they passed the resolution congratulating Allen in the same spirit that they routinely praise local people who make achievements. But pro-recall residents were angered nonetheless.

“The council is supposed to be nonpartisan,” said recall advocate Regan Smith. “This resolution for Doris Allen just showed how out of touch they are with the people. People are already coming up to us and asking where they can sign the recall petition against Doris Allen.”

Congressman Dana Rohrabacher (R-Huntington Beach) said such a petition soon will be circulating in Cypress and the other cities in Allen’s Assembly district, which comprises northwest Orange County. He is spearheading the effort to oust her.

“The city of Cypress is conservative Republican,” he said. “Doris Allen is going to be recalled.”

Meanwhile, petitions aimed at Age and Kerry already have been completed and certified. The petition against Bowman was drafted later and is still being circulated.

City officials say they hope to consolidate all three City Council recall petitions for a single election this fall. The recall campaign against Allen, which is just beginning, would require a separate election later.

At a local shopping center last week, City Council recall advocates were stopping passersby and urging them to sign the petition aimed at Bowman. The response was mixed, with some people stating their opposition to the recall, some signing the petition and others simply ignoring the workers.

Resident Robert Miller, one of those who stopped to sign the Bowman recall petition, said he wants the ouster of all three council members. “I don’t like the way they ignored the people’s warnings about environmental damage from the warehouse,” he said.

In an increasingly acrimonious climate, lingering resentment over the 1993 card club controversy is also a factor in the current council recall effort. Kerry, who was mayor in 1993, campaigned strongly for the card club, and some residents threatened at the time to recall her but never followed through.

Some opponents of the recall drive accuse pro-recall forces of stirring up the card club issue again simply to ensure a big anti-council turnout at the polls.

“I resent it bitterly,” said resident Elkin, who is an anti-recall leader. “The card club issue was resolved. It’s not anything to be brought up now.”

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Cypress At a Glance * Mayor: Cecilia L. Age * 1995 population: 46,950 * Size: 6.65 square miles * Incorporated: 1956 * Median age: 33.2 * Median household income: $50,981 * Ethnicity: About 70% white * Legislative districts: 39th Congressional (Ed Royce); 67th Assembly (Doris Allen); 35th state Senate (Ross Johnson) * City motto: “Education--Cooperation--Progress” Source: 1990 U.S. Census, Times reports