Keeping the status quo

Jenny Marder

It will be business as usual for city government in Huntington Beach

as residents overwhelmingly shot down a proposal that would have

split the city into five council districts and shrunk the number of

City Council members from seven to five.

The Fair District Initiative, or Measure E, was crushed at the

polls Tuesday to the relief of many residents, who have worked

doggedly to see it defeated.

“This has been the most diverse group of people brought together

for the love of the city,” said longtime activist and former Mayor

Shirley Dettloff, at an election party at the home of former Mayor

Ralph Bauer Tuesday. “We were united and that’s why we won this

thing.”

According to election results Wednesday morning, 63.3% of

Huntington Beach voters opposed the measure.

There were glitches reported at the polls, however, with some

Huntington Beach residents not given an opportunity to vote on

Measure E.

“I was concerned for several reasons when I heard,” said

Huntington Beach resident Tim Geddes. “The first, is that the new

system may have had problems that would have made it harder for

Orange County than easier. I was also concerned about the integrity

of the election overall.”

The Orange County Registrar of Voters said that it was a minor

incident, however, in which a Huntington Beach resident was issued a

Fountain Valley ballot at a polling place that covered precincts for

both cities. It will not affect election results, officials said.

Backers of the initiative raised more than $200,000 to their

opponents $35,000. But what critics lacked in dollars, they made up

for in passion, fervor and manpower.

The measure’s opponents, dubbed the Huntington Beach Concerned

Voter’s Coalition, began celebrating late Tuesday night, when they

heard that 60% of absentee voters had voted to defeat the initiative.

“Invariably, the final outcome mirrors the absentee ballots,”

Planning Commissioner Tom Livengood said. His announcement was met by

a resounding cheer.

Bauer capped the celebration by reliving the group’s aggressive

campaign and scattering complements, affectionately laced with

personal anecdotes, throughout the crowd.

Headed by Bauer and Dettloff, the campaign was a well-oiled

machine. A blitzkrieg of e-mails, phone calls and fliers were spread

throughout the community. People manned tables at council meetings

and outside stores. About 500 residents walked precincts all over

town.

“We covered every bit of the city,” Dettloff said. “Every single

section was walked.”

The group also had “the most palatial phone bank” Bauer had ever

seen, he said.

“Our force is manpower and I think we did that very well,” he

said.

“And organization and leadership,” added Ed Kerins, president of

the activist group Huntington Beach Tomorrow.

Measure E would have radically altered the structure of government

in Huntington Beach. The initiative would have sliced the city into

five districts, each represented by one council member, elected by

and accountable only to the residents in that district. Residents’

votes would have been also been reduced from three or four every two

years to one every four years.

Critics contended that residents would have less representation

under the plan, since they would have only one council member to

bring concerns to. They argued that five representatives were not

enough for a city of 200,000 and feared the plan would pit council

members against one another as they fought for special projects in

their area.

They also worried that the Republican-backed measure would divide

the city along partisan lines.

Proponents of the measure claimed that neighborhoods would be

better off with one council member devoted to a single district.

Scott Baugh, who backed the initiative, felt that the districting

plan would allow representatives to develop an intimate knowledge of

their section of the city and be more accessible to their

constituents.

Super Tuesday wasn’t so super for Baugh.

“It was pretty clear that it was more reform than the city wanted

by going to districts and by shrinking the council,” Baugh said. “I’m

confident the measure would have passed in November 2002, based on

all of our polling data. But a year and a half goes by and the

opposition did a good job of beating the drums. The net effect is

that over time, support for districting eroded, coupled with the fact

that many people didn’t want to go from seven to five [districts.]”

Baugh has no plans to push a similar initiative in the future.

Instead he plans to turn his attention toward party building

activities for the Republican party.

Victors say the Measure E battle was yet another example of the

pride and dedication Huntington Beach residents take in their city.

“In any other city or in most other cities, the people would be

fooled by all the literature, but we have the activists -- 500 people

dedicated and involved in the campaign,” Sullivan said. “The people

prevailed and we beat the big out-of-town money.”

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

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