Making his mark in the election

Dave Brooks

What is the mark of a serious candidate?

John Earl says it shouldn’t be the dollar mark. Earl believes that

being a serious candidate has everything to do with community

involvement and little to do with how much money one can raise.

“I think its pretty appalling that we view that as a standard,” he

said. “We should let voters decide who is a serious candidate, not

dollars.”

Earl’s assertions on money are just one of the many idealistic

paradigms that define his bid for a seat on the Huntington Beach City

Council. In a race that usually takes $25,000 to win, he doesn’t plan

to take any money from the typical major donors. Earl works as a

labor organizer, but stands little chance of sealing endorsements

with two of the city’s most powerful unions, police and fire. He also

sits on the re-election committee of Councilwoman Debbie Cook, who

technically is running against him.

And in an area known for its conservative voters, Earl has made

his primary political engine the Orange County chapter of the Green

Party, a group with approximately 8,000 members countywide in a race

that takes between 16,000 to 20,000 votes to win.

Those might seem like long-shot odds, but it was enough to get

Earl’s friend Karl Warkomski, a fellow Green, elected to the Aliso

Viejo City Council. A natural pragmatic, Warkomski said he thinks a

changing tide is moving through Orange County’s coastal communities.

“It seems like everyone is moving slightly to the left,” he said.

“At the local level, we’re starting to see architects embrace ideas

like smart development and pedestrian-friendly city centers. We’ll

see things change.”

On Sunday, Earl received the official endorsement of the OC Greens

during a special assembly meeting in Irvine. For his own part, Earl’s

interest in organizing the waterfront hotels gives him the

resemblance of a weathered ramble-rouser, a mix between Michael Moore

and Sacco and Vanzetti. Clad in a worn-out corduroy hat, Green Party

t-shirt and shockingly white socks against black shoes and pants,

Earl laid out a concise political platform that seemed possible on

the local level.

The city should rethink its licensing agreement with Coca-Cola

because of reports of alleged human rights abuses in South America,

he said.

“I think we need to establish a corporate code of conduct for

large businesses that have contracts with the city,” he said.

He also said he would like to see local voting rights extended to

noncitizens and a legally mandated living wage for employees at the

city’s hotels.

The city also needs to reassess its public safety spending and

relocate some of the funding to social services.

“We shouldn’t be held hostage by the Police and Fire Departments,”

he said. “We shouldn’t be cutting back [on social programs]. The

people with the most should sacrifice the most.”

Earl said he is realistic about his chances of winning and is

using the election as a platform to bring important issues to the

local debates and build the Green Party base.

“This is an opportunity to facilitate the power of the ordinary

people to participate in democracy,” he said.