Santa Ana Nearly OKs, Then Rejects Ward Ballot Item

The Santa Ana City Council, in a meeting that at times had the city attorney and the council itself confused, nearly approved but ultimately rejected a proposal to let voters decide in November whether they want ward elections.

Both proponents and opponents of ward elections--a divisive issue in the city since 1986--were surprised at the turn of events that, at one point, appeared to have the proposal headed for the ballot.

But a change of heart shortly before midnight Monday on the part of Vice Mayor Patricia A. McGuigan meant that Councilman Miguel J. Pulido’s motion to put the issue before the electorate would die for lack of a fourth vote. (Four votes are needed to pass any motion in Santa Ana.)

“It’s unfortunate, because we were so close,” Pulido said Tuesday. “I thought going in that it might be supported 3 to 2, but a lot of it was up to the fourth person.”

Santa Ana voters rejected ballot measures that would have instituted ward elections in 1983 and twice by narrow margins in 1986. But the issue has persisted.

Last week, the group that sponsored the 1986 measures--Santa Ana Merged Society of Neighbors, or SAMSON--announced that it would join forces with two Latino groups to file suit against the city if it did not change the system of electing council members at large.

The two Latino groups--San Antonio-based Southwest Voter Registration Education Project and the Mexican-American Legal Defense and Educational Fund--won a federal appellate court decision last week ruling that at-large elections in the Northern California city of Watsonville unfairly discriminate against Latinos. The groups have been gathering data on Santa Ana elections and have not yet decided whether they will file suit.

Certainly no one expected the council to put the wards issue on the ballot Monday night.

But Councilmen Dan E. Griset and Wilson B. Hart, both of whom oppose ward elections, were absent. With Councilmen Ron May and John Acosta supporting Pulido’s proposal, that left Dan Young and, presumably, McGuigan to block its passage.

Before the wards issue arose, the council considered several proposed city charter amendments, including one that would have allowed the council to fill a vacancy created by a member’s election to mayor. The existing charter provision calls for a special citywide election in such cases.

Several residents spoke against the proposed change, and the council voted unanimously to leave that section of the charter as is.

Then Pulido made his proposal that the council place the wards issue on the November ballot.

Then the real confusion began.

Young asked for a “sense of the council” straw poll before directing City Atty. Edward J. Cooper to draft the necessary language to formally place the measure on the ballot.

While expressing concerns that the council was “jumping into this,” McGuigan said she would be willing to put the wards question on the ballot. “They voted on it before, I guess,” she said.

But after a 20-minute recess, Cooper read aloud the proposed language, and it became apparent that neither he nor several council members were clear on which proposed charter amendments the council wanted on the November ballot and which they did not.

Once they were in agreement on that, Young called for the vote on the wards issue. Not hearing any objections other than his own, Young began to declare the motion approved, 4 to 1.

Then McGuigan interrupted him. “I will say no also because this thing is so confused, I feel like we’re going to screw this thing up royally by trying to do it tonight,” she said.

Young called for another recess, this time to let McGuigan meet with Cooper to clear up any points of confusion.

“This is . . . chaos,” Young said during the break.

With council members back in their seats, McGuigan let it be known that she would not support the motion after all. “I’m very concerned about the last-minute confusion trying to get this thing worded properly,” she said. “Let’s take the time to do it right.”

McGuigan said Tuesday that she is still “philosophically very strongly opposed” to ward elections, but would not be against putting a properly worded measure on the ballot in the future. “I just felt that it was inappropriate to rush something like this,” she said. “At the 11th hour . . . this is not the way to run government.”

Young also criticized the last-minute attempt to put the question on the ballot. “It was done without any public notice, and we weren’t offered anything in writing to look at,” he said.

‘Healthy Political Environment’

Young said he is “not sure what has changed since the last time the public looked at this issue.” The Watsonville decision, he said, would probably not apply to Santa Ana, where Latinos have been on the council since 1969 and where challengers regularly defeat incumbents. “In Santa Ana, there would appear to be a healthy political environment,” he said.

Pulido said Tuesday that he did not introduce the wards measure “as a minority issue but more as potentially a policy decision of good government. With a generally elected mayor, it makes more sense to have the checks and balance of powers of council members voted from each district. . . . It’s just a superior form of representation.”

But Pulido had no words of criticism for McGuigan, whose flip-flop cost him what would have been a major political coup.

“Yeah, it would have passed but for her concerns,” said Pulido, who refrained from trying to talk McGuigan into supporting the motion during the two recesses. “I think if I had gone in there and tried to change some things, it would have added to her concerns, not alleviated them. . . . I was comfortable with it (the motion); I think the other people were too. You’ll have to ask her about it.”