Drawing new battle lines

Jenny Marder

Former Assemblyman Scott Baugh practices government law in one of the

nation’s largest firms, serves as finance chair for Rep. Dana

Rohrabacher’s election campaign, and is actively involved in

California’s Republican party. He has a wife and a 16-month-old son and travels frequently to Sacramento for work.

What spare time he has left he devotes to improving his own city,

Huntington Beach.

Below a painting of George Washington and beside one of his son’s

brightly colored toys sits a redrawn map of Huntington Beach sits on

Baugh’s office desk.

The document, which shows a map of the city carved into five

sections with clean, bold lines, has proven a source of great

controversy over the past year.

Baugh brought to the March 2004 ballot the Fair District

Initiative, a measure that could drastically change the structure of

government in Surf City. Since the idea reared its head in 2002, it

has split the city and inspired many heated debates on the City

Council dais.

Baugh’s plan calls for the city to be divided into five districts,

each with one council member elected from within that community to

represent that community. The plan would also reduce the number of

City Council members by two and impose term limits.

Baugh, a bulky man with an easy smile and friendly disposition,

looks younger than his 41 years.

His Boardwalk Huntington Beach home is large and lavishly

decorated. A natural swimming pool, complete with waterslide and

straw umbrella shading nooks, wends through his yard, which has

served as a hot spot for various political gatherings.

Colleagues praise Baugh for his strong convictions, sharp

intelligence and high level of professionalism.

“He presents a very attractive package of being affable as well as

being professional,” Rohrabacher said. “He has a solid conservative

philosophy that he really believes, but he is flexible enough to be

practical in achieving those goals.”

Baugh believes that, under the districting plan, council members

would develop an intimate knowledge of their section of the city and

be more accessible to their constituents.

“At least you’ll have someone to go to and lodge your complaints

and then hold them accountable to action,” Baugh said.

The initiative would create a sense of balance that he said is

lacking in the current system.

“Every neighborhood deserves to be represented,” Baugh said. “Vast

portions have either never had representation or haven’t been

represented for many years.”

Much of the city’s infrastructure is also in need of repair, he

said.

“If you travel around communities surrounding Brookhurst [Street]

and Adams [Avenue,] you’ll see miles of sidewalks that are in

significant disrepair,” Baugh said. “They’ve been uprooted by trees,

some haven’t been addressed at all, and some have been patched over

to the point in which it almost looks like a skateboard ramp.”

Baugh represented the 67th District of the California State

Assembly from 1995 to 2000. He took office in a 1995 recall election,

unseating the late Doris Allen, who angered party officials by making

a deal with Democrats to become speaker of the Assembly.

After a rocky beginning in which Baugh was accused of using

illegal election tactics during his own campaign -- he was eventually

cleared -- he went on to serve as Republican leader from 1999 to

2000.

While a member of the Assembly, he pushed for bills on tax

cutting, prison reform, transportation projects, smog check programs

and fought to secure healthcare for small business employees.

This summer, he joined the Los Angeles office of International Law

Firm Mayer, Brown, Rowe & Maw LLP, where he practices business and

government law.

Critics of the districting initiative contend that residents will

have less representation under the plan, since they will have only

one council member to bring concerns to. They argue that five

representatives are not enough for a city of 200,000 and fear the

plan would pit council members against one another as they fight for

special projects in their area.

“Right now, you have seven people accountable instead of just one,

and that one may or may not represent your interests,” said Ed

Kerins, president of the activist group Huntington Beach Tomorrow.

“Under districting, you’d have one representative only instead of

seven.”

Kerins is a spokesman for a newly formed residents’ group that has

taken a stand against districts.

Dubbed the Huntington Beach Voter’s Coalition, the group plans to

mount a widespread campaign against the initiative. Members have

already been collecting signatures, handing out fliers and speaking

out against the plan at council meetings. About 1,000 yard signs have

been made and will soon begin sprouting up all over town, said Dean

Albright, a member of the opposition group.

“People should know that they’re going to be losing their voting

power,” Kerins said. “They’re going to have one vote only for one

council member instead of seven votes over the course of four years,

and that that one vote is only for the say on 20% of the city.”

In March, 2002, Baugh and supporters collected 22,000 signatures,

more than the required 16,000 needed to get the initiative on the

ballot.

A proposal to put a competing seven-district initiative on the

ballot was voted down by the City Council in November.

Voters in Huntington Beach have elected seven council members at

large since 1968. Before that, only five council members held seats.

Of Orange County’s 34 cities, Seal Beach is the only city in which

council members are elected by districts.

In neighboring Newport Beach, which has seven districts, council

members must live in the district they represent but seek votes

citywide.

Baugh has plans to garner even more support for the measure as

voting day draws near.

“We’ll run a widespread campaign,” Baugh said. “We’ll have maps to

hand out and literature to hand out. ... I’m extremely confident we

will prevail.”

* JENNY MARDER covers City Hall. She can be reached at (714)

965-7173 or by e-mail at jenny.marder@latimes.com.