Council Delays Initiative, Is Sued

A supporter of a ballot measure that would reshape the Huntington Beach City Council has filed suit against the council, demanding that the initiative be placed on the November ballot.

The initiative, which would reduce the number of council members to five from seven and replace the citywide election system with district elections, qualified to be on the ballot in November.

But council members, some of whom oppose the proposal, decided instead to place it on the March 2004 ballot.

A hearing on the issue will be held in Superior Court on Wednesday. Councilwoman Connie Boardman said the council decided on the March ballot because measure opponents needed time to investigate whether the initiative would withstand a legal challenge. The majority of the council also wanted to give opponents time to mount an effective campaign.

Because the measure would not take effect until November 2004, “it was reasonable to postpone” the vote, Boardman said.

She said the group formed to fight the measure has raised only $1,500 while proponents have raised nearly $100,000. “We need to give the community a chance to get their side out,” she said.

But Joe Jeffrey, who gathered more than 500 signatures for the ballot, sees the council’s move as pure politics.

“I told ... people, ‘Give us enough signatures, and we’ll have it on the November ballot’ ” Jeffrey said. “It makes me look like I lied to them, and I had nothing to do with it.”

Scott Baugh, the former assemblyman who wrote the measure, also expressed anger over the delay.

“When you go out and collect 22,000 signatures in order to qualify for the November election, you have every reason to believe it will be on the November election,” Baugh said. “It’s an abuse of the process for the City Council ... to kick the election over for a year and a half to give the opponents time to mount their campaign.”

Baugh said the current council system, in which seven members are elected at-large, has favored coastal and environmental issues at the expense of inland concerns.

The result, he said, has been a “billion-dollar infrastructure problem related to sewers and roads.”

His solution would be to have five council members elected by districts.

District representation would make council members more accountable to residents and reduce the cost of running for office, he said.

Council members say Baugh’s effort is a blatant attempt by business interests to gain control of the council. That allegation was fueled by the disclosure that a contributor to the campaign is the AES Corp., which owns a power plant in Huntington Beach.

AES and the city have had a rocky relationship for years. During last year’s energy crisis, AES received fast-track approval from the state to restart two generators at the Huntington Beach plant that had been idle since 1995. The council unsuccessfully fought the move, saying the generators would cause excessive pollution and noise.