LOCAL ELECTIONS / GARDEN GROVE CITY COUNCIL : Candidates in Crowded Races Are Linked by Pro-Business Slant

The sights along Garden Grove Boulevard offer hints why the five candidates for mayor and the 12 aspiring for City Council seats in the Nov. 8 election have declared themselves pro-business.

The city’s major thoroughfare is littered with the scars of a struggling local economy: boarded up storefronts, signs advertising vacant office buildings and chain-link fences around empty, weed-choked lots.

There are some bright spots. On Main Street, across from a patch of vacant land, stands the newly opened Costco, the largest store of the national chain, built in part with redevelopment money.

With its palm trees and manicured lawns, Costco is the first of several projects that city officials hope will revive the downtown area and bring new tax dollars into the city.

But from the strip malls on the east side to the Korean shops on the west end, there are telltale signs that businesses along the city’s two-mile stretch of Garden Grove Boulevard are still hurting.

That’s why the first order of business, say candidates, is to revive the local economy. Immediately. Otherwise, public services could be jeopardized, they say.

This fiscal year, city officials covered a $7 million deficit through a variety of cuts, including not filling 11 positions in the Police Department, in order to balance the $46.5-million budget.

City officials are projecting another $7 million deficit for fiscal year 1995-96, with income estimated at $40.8 million and expenses at $47.8 million.

Last year, the council rejected a proposal to open a card club as an anchor of a theme park, but two candidates for mayor--Al N. Snook and Kelly A. Sherwood--said the idea should not be dismissed outright.

“Put it up to the public for a vote,” said Snook, 59, an insurance broker. “It could bring in from $15 million to $20 million a year.”

Sherwood, 28, an engineering assistant, said that he favors a card club as part of a family-oriented theme park in the mold of the “new” Las Vegas.

The other mayoral candidates--Councilman Ho Chung, Councilman Bruce A. Broadwater and Bart E. Blakesley--said they are against a card club or casino opening in the city.

Chung, 60, an insurance agent, said that he would like to see an international trade center as an anchor of a theme park built to complement the proposed expansion of Disneyland.

Broadwater, 55, who works for the state Department of Insurance, said he also favors a theme park that would offer family-oriented recreation and an ice skating rink that could be home to a minor league hockey team.

Blakesley, 53, a supervising engineer with the Los Angeles Metro Rail Design team, said he supports building a high-tech rail system along Harbor Boulevard with the project funded in part with federal money.

Chung and Broadwater said the theme park could be developed with redevelopment money and private investors, but Blakesley said he would favor using redevelopment funds, with matching funds from other public agencies.

A Seal Beach company, U.S. Entertainment Inc., is studying whether a theme park in Garden Grove would be feasible with Disneyland and Knott’s Berry Farm just a few miles away. The council agreed to spend $17,000 for the study, which is expected to be completed before the end of the year.

The race for the two-year mayor’s seat is considered wide open. Mayor Frank Kessler decided not to seek reelection after one term.

Kessler, 61, a former Garden Grove police chief and councilman, said that he was frustrated by the in-fighting among council members, which was exacerbated when four of them decided to run in the Nov. 8 election.

In addition to Chung and Broadwater running for mayor, Mark Leyes and Robert F. Dinsen, are running for reelection.

Kessler said he also was bitter with the council decision last year to pull out of the League of California Cities, which he said has isolated the city.

He has endorsed Blakesley, a former member of the Planning Commission, for mayor, although he was widely expected to support Chung, an ally on the council. The mayor said Chung would remain on the council anyway for the next two years.

The mayor, elected citywide, holds a two-year term.

In the crowded race for two open seats on the council, the candidates include the 77-year-old Dinsen, who has been on the council since 1980, and 25-year-old Jose Luis Moreno Jr., a political science student at UC Irvine.

Four said they will bring business experience to the council: Pam Harris, 27, business owner; Martha Anderson-Monroe, 54, business owner; Richard R. Rahder, 49, an accountant and mortgage broker, and Frank Hoffman, 45, a lawyer and realtor.

The other candidates are Fortunato Mabutas, 57, a realtor and teacher of English as a second language; Kenneth W. Maddox, 30, a Tustin police officer; Jeff Robinson, 27, a marketing associate of a publishing company, and John M. Parent, 38, purchasing manager of an aircraft company.

Also running are Leyes, who is seeking a second term, and Tony Ingegneri, an advertising executive and member of the Planning Commission. Leyes and Ingegneri, both 36, have been endorsed by the Police Officers Assn.

At a recent forum sponsored by the Garden Grove Chamber of Commerce, the council candidates agreed that the only way out of the city’s financial difficulties is to bring in more tax dollars.

They said the city must be more business-friendly, charge lower fees, encourage people to buy in Garden Grove and promote a better city image.

The first step, some candidates said, is to stop the bickering among council members, who are often perceived to be more interested in running for higher office than doing their work on the council.