Showdown Near in Lopez Recall

Tuesday’s recall election of Santa Ana Unified School District trustee Nativo V. Lopez will be remembered as a bitter and costly political contest.

As of last week, $388,000 in campaign contributions had been raised by the two sides.

In contrast, candidates in last week’s special election to fill the county Board of Supervisors 3rd District seat spent about $280,000, most of it by Bill Campbell, who won.

In Santa Ana, Tuesday’s contest will be the culmination of a bitter, almost yearlong confrontation between Lopez, 51, an immigrant-rights activist first elected in 1996, and those who have a long list of accusations against him.

They allege that Lopez promotes bilingual education in defiance of Proposition 227, approved in 1998, which mandates that students be taught in English, with few exceptions. They blame him and his allies on the school board for delays in school construction in the chronically overcrowded school district of 61,000 students, despite a $145-million bond voters passed more than three years ago. They say Lopez has divided the largely Latino city along ethnic lines.

Lopez says he is only standing up for low-income Latino and immigrant families in a city where they have historically been ignored. Parents have a right to choose bilingual education when three-quarters of district students are still learning English, he says. Lopez, who has declared a moratorium on interviews with The Times, has also said that most recall supporters are residents of a historic and relatively affluent neighborhood in the northern part of the city who oppose an elementary school planned in their backyard.

Many opponents of the Lorin Griset Elementary School, scheduled to be completed by next summer, do back the recall. But they say their criticisms go beyond just the school. They also cite academic performance in the district.

The district is one of the poorest performers in the county, but it fares better than districts with similar demographics statewide. It has more schools ranked in the upper half of performance than any other unified district with a similar percentage of low-income students and those still learning English, according to state records.

Lopez supporters and recall backers launched a flurry of fliers last week and hit the pavement urging citizens to vote. Voter turnout is expected to be low.

Four candidates seek to replace Lopez should he be recalled: Robert L. Richardson, 41, a former Santa Ana Unified trustee and city councilman; Vivian Martinez, 40, a district parent and one of the recall organizers; Candy Pettus, 35, a community college instructor; and John Raya, 49, a former boxer who runs a youth boxing academy in Santa Ana.

Richardson is favored, given his connections to the city’s power brokers, including Mayor Miguel A. Pulido. Richardson raised $63,000. Martinez, a political neophyte, raised just over $3,000 and has the support of many recall supporters.

Raya, who did not return calls seeking comment, is a lifelong resident of the city and has served on the Rancho Santiago Community College board. He raised no money, according to his campaign filings.

Pettus said she does not support the recall but decided to run to offer voters an alternative to those who favor it.

Voters will be asked to answer “yes” or “no” on whether Lopez should be recalled. Regardless of the answer, voters then can choose who should replace Lopez if he is ousted.

“The other candidates [Martinez and Richardson] have only offered attacks on Nativo,” said Pettus, who took a $1,650 loan from sitting trustee Sal Tinajero to get her campaign going.