7 of 8 City Candidates Sign Ethics Pledge

Hoping to limit campaign mudslinging, the Santa Ana Chamber of Commerce has won pledges from most of the candidates in the upcoming city election not to make scurrilous attacks on their political opponents.

“The results of the June primary demonstrated that negative campaigning is destructive,” chamber President Michael Metzler said. “Post-recessionary voters are no longer interested in hearing about personal attacks.”

The request for pledges comes at a time of volatile politics in Santa Ana. Councilman Ted R. Moreno, who has been charged in a federal corruption indictment, said he will continue his campaign to unseat incumbent Mayor Miguel Pulido.

Moreno is the only candidate in the Nov. 3 election who declined to sign the pledge.

“It’s just theatrics on the part of the chamber,” he said. “I’ve always run clean campaigns. I’ve never gone out there and slandered people. People have never accused me of putting out false information.”

Pulido and council candidates Lisa Bist, Jose Fernandez, Zeke Hernandez, Alberta Christy, Claudia Alvarez and Patricia McGuigan signed the pledge.

Bist is running unopposed in Ward 2; Fernandez, Hernandez and Christy are competing in Ward 4, and Alvarez and McGuigan are running in Ward 6.

Pulido, whom the chamber has endorsed for reelection, said the document effectively communicates the campaign’s true spirit.

“I think it talks in more detail about some of the do’s and don’ts of the campaign,” he said.

Chamber board members approved the document in June.

It is separate from the state’s Code of Fair Campaign Practices, which sets legal requirements for campaign filings. All eight candidates have signed that form.

Candidates signed the chamber’s pledge during interviews with the Santa Ana Chamber Political Action Committee earlier this month.