Yorba Linda committees push political agendas

One pattern on the Yorba Linda civic scene has remained constant since the late 1950s and early 1960s: residents pushing political agendas organize committees to promote their goals and publicize their activities to the broader community.

Two such groups are on opposite sides of the current wrangling over residential density levels on mostly west-side infill properties, affordable housing requirements and a recall effort aimed at Mayor Craig Young and Councilman Tom Lindsey.

Roadside signs promoting the recall and accusing Young and Lindsey of favoring higher den-sities are posted by the nine-year-old Yorba Linda Residents for Responsible Representation.

(YLRRR officers substituted the word “representation” for the original “redevelopment” sometime after several founding members left the group over various policy disputes.)

Signs opposing recall are posted by Residents for a Better Yorba Linda, a group with some of the same supporters as the disbanded United Citizens for Yorba Linda that aided a recall effort against John Anderson and opposed Nancy Rikel and Mark Schwing in the 2012 election.

YLRRR endorsed successful candidates Anderson and Jan Horton in 2006, Hank Wedaa in a 2007 special ballot, Nancy Rikel and Mark Schwing in 2008, Anderson and Tom Lindsey in 2010 and Schwing in 2012, later withdrawing support for Horton, Wedaa and Lindsey.

United Citizens endorsed the successful Young and Gene Hernandez in 2012 and A Better Yorba Linda supports Hernandez, Lindsey and Young and opposes Anderson and Schwing.

Current committees always choose positive, high-sounding names, even when the goal is to target adversaries with negatives or what they like to call “highlighting an opponent's record,” allowing their candidates the opportunity to take a more positive road in campaigns.

Early groups took purposeful names and listed members in circulars and ads. A Citizens' Com-mittee to Study Incorporation formed in 1956, followed by Cityhood Steering Committee, Yorba Linda Homeowners' Association, Committee for Incorporation, Committee for the Preservation of Yorba Linda and Committee for Yorba Linda, which opposed annexation to Anaheim.

A successful later group, Prevent Airport Traffic in Chino Hills or PATCH, combined grass roots support with leadership from some north county elected leaders, including five-time mayor Wedaa.

As land became valuable for new homes, developers contributed heavily to city committees, such as Past and Present Elected Officials Representing Yorba Linda, which endorsed candidates for council and Yorba Linda Water District.

And the John Gullixson-guided, developer-funded Safe Streets Are for Everyone successfully opposed an initiative ballot measure to stop the widening of Imperial Highway.

Arrayed against the developer-funded council candidates and projects of the 1990s and early 2000s was the financially challenged Organization of Unified Concerned Homeowners, or OUCH, led by several advocates for a semi-rural environment.