LOCAL ELECTIONS / WESTMINSTER MAYOR, CITY COUNCIL : Vote Represents Calm After the Storm of June Recall Try

WESTMINSTER —  Compared to the unsuccessful recall election in June, the Nov. 8 municipal election here is like an after-thought.

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For the first time since 1986, when the mayor was first elected directly by the voters, there is only one candidate: Mayor Charles V. Smith, who will win a fourth term.

And just three candidates are seeking the two open seats on the City Council: Margie L. Rice, 65, a trustee of the Westminster School District, and the incumbents, Craig Schweisinger, 47, a businessman, and Tony Lam, 58, a restaurant owner.

Local elections are often contentious in this city, but the bitter campaign to remove Smith, Lam, Schweisinger and Councilwoman Charmayne S. Bohman over last year’s budget cuts in the Fire Department seems to have dampened the political fervor among potential candidates and the electorate.

“It’s time for a cooling off period,” said Joy Neugebauer, a three-time mayor who lost to Smith in the 1992 election, and was widely expected to run again this year.

Instead of running for city government, Neugebauer, the first mayor directly elected by the people, is running to for director of Division 2 of the Orange County Water District.

Randy Russell, a Little Saigon developer, took out nomination papers for mayor this summer but decided a few days before the Aug. 12 filing deadline not to run. He cited the press of business, saying he could not devote enough time to running a campaign or to serving as mayor, if he won.

The recall effort was backed by the Westminster Firefighters Assn. and sparked when the council slashed $1 million from the Fire Department’s $6.6-million budget. The recall was defeated as residents backed the incumbents by a 2-1 ratio.

“The council got a vote of confidence from the people,” said Smith, 62, a retired aerospace engineering manager, adding that the recall’s failure may have deterred challengers.

On many issues the candidates for the two at-large council seats agree. All say that trimming city expenditures and seeking new sources of income are the biggest challenge for the council. They voice strong support for improving police service and youth and recreational programs, and advocate spending by the city to upgrade its aging water and sewer lines.

But with a still soft economy and the state periodically taking away property taxes, the candidates disagree about how much to spend on improving the business and cultural climate in the city.

Smith was among a council majority that voted 3 to 2 recently to use federal community development block grants to build a community cultural arts center. The $8.8-million project would include building a park and the rehabilitation of the 15th Street apartments across from City Hall.

Lam and Schweisinger opposed the project, saying the grant money would be better spent on affordable housing or more pressing community concerns.

Rice said she favors a community cultural center but would build something more modest.

All the candidates also favor the development of Little Saigon and its conversion to a tourist destination in the mold of San Francisco’s Chinatown, but they have different views on how such a project should be financed and how involved city government should be in its development.

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Lam complains that the city is not moving fast enough, or allocating enough money for improvements as recommended by an advisory panel of merchants formed two years ago. One of the recommendations was to set up a cultural center where events such as the annual Tet Festival could be held.

Schweisinger said he supports some form of an assessment district to pay for the improvements, but he insists that only property owners who would directly benefit should pay the special assessment, and not all property owners in Little Saigon.

Rice said she favors creating a tourist and trade center in Little Saigon but is unsure how involved city government should be in the project and has not studied the different ways to finance such a development. She said such a project should not be undertaken by the city at the expense of other neighborhoods.

Smith, who is leaving for Vietnam Nov. 11 with seven other U.S. mayors on a fact-finding trip, said he expects to see Little Saigon become an important link in an increasing trade with Southeast Asia.

“It may be true in the past that we’ve taken out tax money more than we put in,” Smith said of Little Saigon, which officials said provides about $2 million a year in sales and property taxes. “But we’ll correct that in partnership with the merchants there.”

Among the pressing problems the council will face after the election is finishing work on an ordinance that would regulate the conversion of mobile home parks to commercial and other uses.

Lam and Schweisinger favor a draft ordinance recently recommended by the Planning Commission. It would give more benefits to mobile home park residents displaced by the closure of a mobile home park than are provided by state law.

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Smith called the draft unfair to mobile home park owners because it will make relocation of mobile home residents too costly.

Rice said that a mobile home park conversion ordinance with benefits greater than state law provides is necessary to protect the residents of the city’s 18 mobile home parks, but she said she is unfamiliar with the measure before the council.

Rice, who is on the board of the Midway City Sanitary District, is making a third run for the council, after losing in 1990 and 1992.

“I feel that the people of Westminster deserve a choice,” said Rice, who lost to Lam by 132 votes out of about 14,000 cast in a 1992 contest.

In winning that election, Lam became the first Vietnamese American to hold public office in the nation. During his first term, Lam said, he has succeeded in erasing the perception that he represents only the Vietnamese community, which makes up about 20% of the city’s population of 81,000.

“I believe that what I’ve been doing was for the good of everybody, not just a particular ethnic group,” Lam said. “I’ve helped make Westminster a better place to live in.”

Schweisinger, who is seeking his second term, said that city officials are now being asked to do more for less, and council members should be good financial managers.

“We have to do things better,” Schweisinger said. “We have to do things cheaper because the economy is such that we can’t rely on sales and property anymore. The state takes our money at every turn.”