The great divide

Eron Ben-Yehuda

HUNTINGTON BEACH -- A coalition of Downtown property owners and tenants

is urging city officials to consider dividing the city into districts

rather than continue with the current at-large representation on the

council.

Group members -- who call themselves Huntington Beach Cares -- said they

are frustrated by what they believe is the City Council’s seeming

indifference to their concerns about overdevelopment

“We are totally misrepresented as a community” said Jim Lane, Huntington

Beach Cares co-chairman.

The group formed to challenge city building projects that its members --

about 125 strong -- believe will harm the quality of life for those

living and working by Main Street, he said.

Foremost on their minds is a 2-acre oceanfront hotel, restaurant and

retail complex along the 400 and 500 blocks of Pacific Coast Highway

approved by the council in June, despite “overwhelming” public

opposition, member David Castenholz said. The council has threatened to

purchase private property by force to make way for the project further

raising the ire of opponents.

“Whose interests are being served here?” he asked. “Who is representing

whom?”

To make that clear, Huntington Beach Cares proposes to divide the city

into seven districts and have each district elect its own council member,

Lane said. Currently, the seven council members can be chosen at-large,

meaning from any part of town.

Districting would improve city government, Castenholz said, because

different neighborhoods in Huntington Beach face their own unique

challenges that a council member who’s an “outsider” can’t fully

appreciate.

“Whenever you get an outsider to make a decision in a community, I think

that’s a bad idea,” he said.

Not only does Downtown face unique challenges, but so does the growing

industrial center around the intersection of Bolsa Avenue and Springdale

Street, home of the Boeing Co., he said.

Geography highlights only part of the problem -- minorities need better

representation as well, he said.

“All you have to do is look at the City Council,” Castenholz said.

The population of Huntington Beach is about 192,400, with whites making

up 156,314, Latinos 20,397, and Asians 14,501, according to 1998

estimates from the California Department of Finance.

The city’s liaison for the predominately Latino Oak View community,

Sherri Medrano, suggested more might be accomplished if the neighborhood

elects its own representative.

Changing the city’s form of government requires an amendment to the city

charter, the equivalent of a constitution for municipalities, Lane said.

Unless the council takes the highly unlikely step of making the change

itself, residents will have to gather signatures for a ballot initiative,

he said.

But City Councilman Dave Garofalo, who said he’s heard this talk many

times over the years, doesn’t believe dividing the city is the answer.

“We have to do a better job of working together,” he said.