Candidate Criticizes Polling Place Site

One of two City Council candidates locked in battle over the merits of a proposed Bixby Ranch Co. development has complained about the location of a polling place for the March 26 election: It’s at a tennis club owned by the company.

Planning Commissioner Patty Campbell, running for a council seat against attorney and former planning commissioner Phillip Fife, said the selection of the Bixby Old Ranch Tennis Club as a polling place for the March 26 election will unfairly influence voters in the College Park East neighborhood.

“This is an out-and-out conflict of interest,” Campbell said. “This tennis court is one of the election issues. This is as bad as if I had a polling place in my own home.”

As a planning commissioner, Campbell voted against Bixby’s proposed 223-home “mixed-use” development in July 1995. The company had offered to give the tennis club to the city for use as a community recreation center in return for approval of the Old Ranch Development Plan.

Fife, a supporter of Bixby’s plan, said he does not object to the location of the polling place. He believes it may even help voters.

“For voters who may not have otherwise seen this tennis facility, it would allow them to get a cursory look at it,” Fife said. “But I don’t think anyone can say it was politically selected.”

County Registrar of Voters Rosalyn Lever said the selection of the Tennis Club was made at random last October, after two previous locations were no longer available.

“We’ve already sent sample ballots notifying voters of where the polling place is and we’re not changing it at this time,” Lever said. “We recruited it nonpartisan. This is an election that involves more than just the City Council election in Seal Beach.”