Issues Overshadowed by Individuals in Race for Three Council Seats in Corona

CORONA —  The campaigns for three seats on the Corona City Council have focused more on individuals than on issues, with candidates attacking each other’s ethics and methods.

The only major issue that separates the 10 candidates is the Franklin Initiative, a ballot measure that would set a strict minimum lot size for new single-family homes in Corona. The three incumbents and four challengers oppose the measure; three challengers support it.

Trying to surge ahead in the crowded field, council hopefuls have charged one incumbent with a conflict of interest, claimed another follows staff recommendations too readily and questioned the attendance record of the third.

There is a consensus among the candidates that Corona needs to ensure that its infrastructure can accommodate its rapid growth. All the candidates also want to bring more industry and more jobs to the city, thereby reducing commuter traffic to Orange County.

And they agree that 6th Street--the city’s aging commercial strip--needs improvement and that 6th Street merchants and residents need to be included in the planning process for that revitalization.

The Franklin Initiative--named for its principal proponent, Councilman William Franklin--would require that all new homes in the city be built on lots of at least 7,200 square feet. Exceptions would be prohibited.

Other Members Opposed

The other four council members oppose the measure. The three seeking reelection this fall are Bill Miller, Mayor S. R. (Al) Lopez and Richard A. (Dick) Deininger.

Opponents of the initiative--including challengers George C. Nierlich, Earl C. McNamara, James J. Deegan and Tariq M. Shamma--claim that it ignores other criteria, such as architecture and landscaping, by which proposed residential developments should be judged. And, they say, it will make homes in Corona unaffordable for many.

Building homes on smaller lots “is not going to help the poor people,” countered candidate Clyde D. (Wayne) MacIntosh, a used car dealer in Corona. “It’s going to help the developers.”

Candidates Ralph D. Dean and Ray L. Radtke also support the measure. “We’re not seeing a break in price on the homes” built on smaller lots, said Dean, a family physician.

Dean has been criticized by opponents who say he moved to Corona just to run for a council seat. He previously lived in the adjacent, unincorporated community of Coronita.

Dean responds that he has owned property in Corona and has been part of the community for years.

“I think that’s something the voters will have to consider when they go to the polls,” said Miller.

Some of the candidates question the propriety of Lopez’s votes on issues affecting developers and the only major issue on which candidates differ is a ballot initiative that would set a strict minimum lot size for new single-family homes.

others who advertise in his quarterly Corona-Norco Community Business Magazine.

“The mayor has got himself involved with developers in his magazine,” McIntosh said. “They advertise in his magazine, then he votes in favor of development.”

Added Dean: “It’s not illegal . . . but it certainly appears strange” when Lopez votes to grant a cable television franchise to a company that “prior to that council meeting had already taken out a full-page advertisement in his magazine.”

Under state law, Lopez said, a conflict of interest can arise only if at least $250 is involved. “I checked with our city attorney way back when I first started” publishing a magazine, Lopez said.

The cable company’s advertisement cost only $225, Lopez said. “I did not feel it constituted any problem, any violation. And I did not feel there was any conflict.”

But Dean believes that “if there’s even a hint of a conflict of interest, he should abstain from voting.”

Lopez also has drawn criticism for writing a recent letter recommending Santa Ana attorney Frank Valdez to Latino residents of Corona. “A businessman asked me if I would introduce him into the Hispanic community,” Lopez explained. “He’s here to help the community with their legal concerns.”

New Business Welcome

Valdez paid for production and distribution of the letter Lopez wrote, Lopez said.

“I phrased it, ‘As mayor of the City of Corona,’ ” Lopez said. “I always welcome new business into our city. I enjoy having new business in our community. He (Valdez) is here to serve the needs of the Spanish-speaking community. I would have done it for anyone.”

Lopez, whose yearlong term in the largely ceremonial post of mayor ends in December, will recommend that his fellow City Council members appoint a commission of present and former city officials “to help get some guidelines for the position” of mayor, he said.

Another incumbent councilman, Deininger, also has been attacked by opponents, who claim that he is too quick to follow city staff recommendations when voting on important issues.

“Who are the professionals in this business? The staff,” responded Deininger, who owns a hardware store in Riverside. “I’m not an engineer. I’m not a planner.

“If we don’t respect the people we’ve hired, we should get rid of them. They are the pros; we depend on them to tell us the rights and the wrongs.”

‘Grasping at Straws’

Incumbent Miller’s “attendance record isn’t very good at the council,” said challenger Deegan, sales manager for a Corona radio station.

“I think a 92% attendance record is excellent,” Miller said. “Anyone who would criticize that is simply grasping at straws. . . . More than that, I accomplished what I set out to do.”

Deegan also claims that the city spent “over $250,000 to close an adult bookstore,” one of Miller’s pet projects and a cornerstone of the councilman’s 1982 campaign. “We could have bought the store for $50,000,” Deegan said.

Miller, an entrepreneur and cable television operator, lists the bookstore fight high among his achievements during a four-year term on the council and says residents wanted the city to shut it down.

Miller’s main critic, Deegan, played a prominent role in planning Corona’s centennial celebration until the City Council removed him from the Centennial Steering Committee last April for allegedly misrepresenting himself as a city official and other unspecified misconduct. In a 4-1 City Council vote, only Lopez supported Deegan.