Challengers face high hurdles

What does it take to get elected to Yorba Linda’s City Council?

Through 20 municipal elections, 112 different individuals have tried to win a position on the city’s five-member governing body, but voters have approved admission to the select council club to only 26 people in nearly 39 years.

Nevertheless, more are now signing up to compete in this year’s contest. These prospective candidates have until Aug. 11 to complete the filing procedure at City Hall.

So what factors will make two of the contenders winners and all of the remaining hopefuls also-rans?

Widespread name recognition and, lately, a substantial campaign treasury are the two key ingredients needed for a successful run for political office in Yorba Linda. Of course, the sitting council members always have a built-in advantage in both areas.

They’ve gained valuable exposure during their four or more years making decisions at the council dais and attending countless community events, including Eagle Scout Courts of Honor, business ribbon-cuttings, Lobsterfests and other high-profile civic gatherings.

Incumbents are able to draw financial resources from a wide-variety of contributors, including those with a stake in council votes, such as city contractors, developers and individuals and businesses associated with the building and real estate industries.

Past electoral experience has shown that individual contributions of $100, $150 and $200 from ordinary residents aren’t enough to fund campaigns that can consume $35,000 or more in a couple of months of intense electioneering.

Usually, challengers can’t raise that amount of cash, unless at least one incumbent sponsors them and opens the door to the same sources that contribute to incumbents.

And this year’s campaign will be expensive. Those slick, full-color brochures mailed to residents whose names appear on lists of “high-propensity voters” will run about $5,000 each, with the deep-pocket candidates probably planning several such mailings.

In last month’s primary election, nearly one-half of Yorba Linda’s 13,940 voting residents cast absentee ballots, so candidates will time mailers to arrive as these ballots reach the mailboxes and again just before the actual Nov. 7 election day.

Even the cost of a candidate statement in the sample ballot packet the county Registrar’s office mails to registered voters has increased this year. Contenders must deposit $1,029 if they want to include a 200-word description of their qualifications for office.

Other expenses might include hiring political consultants and paying for endorsements on “voter guides” that associate a candidate with several impressively named organizations.

A FINAL NOTE

Late last August, the now-dismissed Old Town developers surveyed residents on the Right-to-Vote initiative, various city issues and people and groups active in public life.

One question asked voters for re-election opinions on council members Ken Ryan and Keri Wilson, with 28 per cent responding favorably to Ryan and 27 per cent to Wilson.

Ryan’s unfavorable responses were 22 per cent and Wilson’s 18 percent. The “don’t know” answers totaled 49 percent for Ryan and 55 percent for Wilson.

I’ll have some fascinating information from the most extensive survey of Yorba Linda political opinions ever conducted to date in next week’s column, gleaned from a closely held 682-page report of findings that I obtained this week.

Fate of Ryan and Wilson could be decided soon

The fate of the two incumbents seeking new four-year City Council terms might be decided within the next three weeks, well before the scheduled Nov. 7 election date.

If the contest attracts numerous challengers, Ken Ryan and Keri Wilson will benefit, because a possibly large anti-incumbent vote would be split among several candidates.

However, if Ryan and Wilson face just one or two individuals with name recognition and community service credentials, their re-election chances could narrow significantly.

Even popular office-holders draw some anti-incumbent votes, and this year Yorba Linda’s council members are still reeling from their now-reversed decisions on Town Center zoning changes and allowing possible eminent domain use in the downtown area.

Filing for the two positions on the city’s five-member governing body opened Monday and will close Aug. 11. In the unlikely event Ryan and Wilson don’t draw at least one challenger, they would be appointed to new four-year terms.

Numerous names on the ballot also would scatter fund-raising efforts among the many challengers, giving Ryan and Wilson a huge lead in financing a campaign aimed at the city’s registered voters—40,355 at last count.

Ryan already had $11,846 in his campaign treasury by the end of 2005, and Wilson held a well-attended fund-raiser June 16 at the Black Gold Golf Club. They each spent about $35,000 to gain their seats in 2002, with Wilson winning by an official three-vote margin.

Interestingly, eight of 26 council members have been turned out of office in the 20 municipal elections held in Yorba Linda’s 39 years as a city.

Three of the original five councilmen selected on the 1967 incorporation ballot were dumped in a hard-fought 1970 contest. Burt Brooks, Bill Ross and Herb Warren lost their seats to challengers who supported stricter low-density zoning.

From then on, only five council members have been forced from office, one at a time.

They include Anton “Doug” Groot, who lost a second term by 14 votes in 1980, and the city’s first mayor, Roland Bigonger, who returned to office in 1986 after retiring from the council in 1972. Bigonger lost an especially bitter re-election campaign in 1990.

Other re-election defeats were suffered by Irwin Fried, who lost a fifth term by 783 votes in 1992; Dan Welch, who lost a second term by 574 votes in 1996; and Mark Schwing, who lost a fourth term by 101 votes in 2000.

A FINAL NOTE

Stop YL Recall leaders say they’re using money raised from local residents and businesses to pay for their modest number of roadway signs and newspaper ads.
By contrast, developers and real estate-related interests at last report spent $168,000 to oppose Measure B, the citizen-sponsored Right-to-Vote initiative, and $115,000 against the grass roots petition drive seeking a vote on the council’s unpopular, now-dead Town Center zoning regulations. Not one dime was reported donated by Yorba Linda residents.

Let’s hope incumbents Ryan and Wilson and all challengers follow the wise example of the anti-recall group and Measure B’s proponents and entirely fund their council campaigns with reasonably sized donations from local residents and businesses.

Candidates shouldn’t solicit or accept money from outside-the-city developers, firms with city contracts and other individuals or businesses whose profits depend on council votes.

School board races are unlikely to be heavily contested

An especially spirited contest for the two City Council seats now held by Ken Ryan and Keri Wilson is likely to overshadow the selection of six trustees for the Placentia-Yorba Linda Unified School District and the North Orange County Community College District.

The council and school trustee positions will appear on the Nov. 7 election ballot if the incumbents draw challengers during the July 17 through Aug. 11 filing period. If only incumbents file, the current office-holders automatically will be appointed to new terms.

In the school board races, the lack of controversial issues and the difficulty of financing a challenge to incumbents in districts that include a large number of voters in several cities usually result in low profile or cancelled contests.

Current board president Karin Freeman and vice president Jan Wagner are expected to file in the 45-square mile Placentia-Yorba Linda district, home to about 27,000 students.

Freeman will be seeking a fifth four-year term. She was a member of the old Yorba Linda elementary school board, who was appointed a unified trustee when the districts merged in 1989. She’s won election four times since, usually by wide margins.

Wagner will seek a third term. A former leader of the district’s educational foundation, she lost her first run for office in 1996, but won two years later and again in 2002.

At last count, the kindergarten through 12th grade district had 86,145 voters in five cities, including 40,323 who reside in Yorba Linda. If Freeman and Wagner attract opponents, the teachers union, the Association of Placentia-Linda Educators, probably will endorse them and perhaps provide financial support for their campaigns.

An even tougher nut for challengers to crack is the community college board, which oversees 20,000 students at Fullerton College, 13,000 at Cypress College and 35,000 in the School of Continuing Education. The district’s nearly 400,000 voters are spread throughout 18 cities entirely or partly within the district’s 155-square-mile service area.

Usually, trustees are first appointed to their positions by the other board members and then run in the next election as incumbents. Three of the four trustees scheduled for the November ballot took this route, including Yorba Lindans Jeff Brown and Mike Matsuda.

Brown and Matsuda represent Area 3, which includes Brea and Placentia-Yorba Linda unified school districts and La Habra City and Lowell Joint elementary school districts. Also up for election are Barbara Dunsheath, appointed August 2005, and Donna Miller.

The college trustees must reside in the area they represent, but they are elected by voters district-wide. A well-financed challenger did beat an appointed incumbent back in 1990.

Brown was appointed in March 2002, won election in November 2002 and could face voters a second time this November, while Matsuda was appointed in August 2005 and would face voters the first time in November--if opponents file to run against them.

A FINAL NOTE

Council candidates file at Yorba Linda City Hall and school and Yorba Linda Water District contenders at the county Registrar of Voters, 1300 S. Grand Ave., Santa Ana.

Aspirants shouldn’t wait until the last minute, since there’s some paperwork, including signature gathering for council positions. The Aug. 11 deadline is extended to Aug. 16 for challengers if an incumbent does not file.

Candidates need to respect the voters

Let’s hope that this year’s crop of candidates seeking nine seats on local governing boards treat the voters with respect and not view them as easy-to-manipulate constituents susceptible to brazenly false claims in a multitude of campaign mailers.

Filing opens July 17 and closes Aug. 11 for two City Council, three water board and four school trustee positions on the Nov. 7 ballot. If an incumbent doesn’t seek re-election, challengers can file through Aug. 16.

The school board seats include two in the Placentia-Yorba Linda district, now held by Karin Freeman and Jan Wagner, and two representing Yorba Linda in the North Orange County Community College District, now held by Jeff Brown and Mike Matsuda. All four are expected to file nomination papers.

Generating the most electoral heat will be the council contest, with incumbents and recall targets Ken Ryan and Keri Wilson, who were running mates in 2002, seeking re-election.

Some warmth may spill over into the Yorba Linda Water District, with director seats currently held by Paul Armstrong, Bill Mills and John Summerfield set for balloting.

Lately, a few well-funded council candidates have hired political consultants. For example, campaign veteran Dennis DeSnoo worked for Ryan and Jim Winder in 2000, Ryan and Wilson in 2002 and Allen Castellano and Mike Duvall in 2004. DeSnoo’s last local gig was with former downtown developer Michael Dieden in 2005 and 2006.

Of course, consultants earn their keep by winning elections. Those who too often find themselves on the losing side soon fade from the scene and their very lucrative careers.

As a result, sometimes the advice consultants give their clients is good for winning, but bad for the community. They gain votes by pouring large sums of money into a barrage of frequently misleading mailers, recorded telephone calls and cable TV advertising.

One favorite tactic is to buy endorsements on so-called “voter guides” or “slate mailers” from groups that sell an association with an impressive-sounding name--such as Parents Ballot Guide, COPS or Citizens for Good Government--to the first or highest bidder.

Such strategies show the consultants--and the candidates who are paying them--have little respect for the intelligence of the voters they’re desperately trying to influence.

Perhaps this year Yorba Lindans will pay close attention to how much money is spent to win these positions, where the money comes from and the tactics used to win their votes.

A FINAL NOTE

City Council recently reduced the amount of time citizens are allowed to speak during oral communications from five to three minutes. That’s certainly acceptable when many residents want to address council members on an especially busy evening.

But they’ve got to get a grip on fairness. At the June 20 meeting an arts supporter was given all the time she needed for a presentation, but council critics were held to a strict 180-second limit.

Also, speakers have been allowed to praise some council members by name, while critics are reminded they must address the entire council and not single out specific individuals.

It’s been suggested that oral communications be moved to the tail end of the meeting. However, listening to the public--even those who are critical of the governing body--should remain the council’s first order of business.