Santa Ana Voters to Get Choice of Propositions

A proposition to alter the structure of Santa Ana city government, believed dead and buried 10 days ago, sprang back to life Monday and will go to the voters next November.

Santa Ana voters will have to choose between that proposition, which calls for ward elections and a directly elected mayor who would vote on council business only in the case of a tie, and an alternative proposal approved unanimously by the City Council Monday night.

Under the council’s proposal, the mayor would be directly elected but would be a regularly voting member of the council. The proposal would maintain the current system of citywide elections for council members, who are required to live in separate wards, but the number of wards would be cut from seven to six.

The original proposition, the work of a coalition of citizens’ groups, was defeated by only 257 votes in the June election. The coalition, the Santa Ana Merged Society of Neighbors, collected 7,567 signatures for a comeback attempt in the November election and submitted them to the city last month.

On July 26, the Orange County Registrar of Voters announced that 6,273 of those signatures were valid--just 15 short of the legal minimum required to put the proposition on the ballot.

However, the group went to work and by Monday had convinced Registrar Al Olson that 20 signatures that had been rejected were valid.

Most of the signatures found to be valid, said Olson, were special cases for which the petition-counters couldn’t be blamed. For example, several women had married and signed their married names but were still listed on voter records under their maiden names. In other cases, signatures were “all but illegible,” Olson said.

“I’m on cloud nine,” said SAMSON spokesman Jim Lowman. He said he never doubted that both city and county officials conducted a fair counting and the errors couldn’t have been avoided.

Procedures for petition-counting will probably be reviewed and there may be some changes if ther system can be made more efficient, Olson said. “Of course, we’d prefer that it not have happened,” he said, stressing that the problems seemed unavoidable.

After getting the news that the proposition had qualified Monday, the City Council voted unanimously to put the alternative proposition on the ballot and let the voters decide for themselves. If both are approved, the one with the most votes will become law, City Attorney Edward J. Cooper said.

Council members said they were uncomfortable with the SAMSON plan because it coupled ward elections and the directly elected mayor in one package. There was support for the latter concept, but council members indicated continued support for citywide elections for council members.

Councilman Dan Young said the existing system is well balanced because it produces council members who have some allegiance to the wards in which they live but are answerable to all city voters.

A quick comparison of the two alternatives:

- Under the council-authorized proposition, the city would be divided into six wards of fairly equal population and the mayor would be a voting member of the council, thereby ensuring an odd number and avoiding the possibility of frequent tie votes. In addition, the mayor’s term would be two years while council members would serve four years.

Any registered voter and resident of Santa Ana could run for mayor, and no one could serve more than two terms. The council would continue to appoint the office of vice mayor.

- Under the SAMSON proposition, the city would retain the current seven geographical wards, and voters from each area would elect a council member who lived in their ward for a four-year term. The mayor would have the power to break tie votes and call for reconsideration of any matter.

All seven council seats and the mayor’s office would come up for election in November 1988, and the existing alternating system would resume in 1990, when wards Two, Four and Six would be up again. The mayor, who would have “no administrative duties,” would serve for two years and there would be no limit on the number of terms for any one person.