TAKING THE INITIATIVE : Voters Hit the Streets With Petitions to Stop Development, Oust Officials

It used to be that there was nothing much you could do. When developers started putting up cinder block walls a few feet from your back yard or talked about packing every available street corner in town with new tanning salons and yogurt parlors, or when the City Council seemed to be draining your grocery money away with new taxes, you could write angry letters.

Maybe you could go to your polling place in the next election and vote against those city council members who seemed indifferent to all the big changes that growth was bringing to the San Gabriel Valley. Mostly you were left frustrated.

But the voters are not taking it any more. Like disgruntled citizens in many other parts of California, they’ve latched onto a powerful weapon to fight back--the initiative petition.

Impelled largely by heartfelt objections to a major building boom in the San Gabriel Valley, which has transformed rural communities into traffic-clogged urban outposts, dissatisfied voters are drawing up petitions and taking their clipboards to the streets.

Your local government won’t put restraints on the headlong pace of growth? Want to get rid of your councilman? Then go to the initiative process and do it yourself, they say.

This is “direct democracy”--citizens drawing up legislation and voting it into law, some petition circulators claim. “It’s citizens telling their elected representatives, ‘Look, we voted for you to represent us, and we don’t think you’re doing that now, so we’re going to take the ball onto the court,’ ” said Kit-Bacon Gressett, a leader of the Pasadena group whose ballot measure to stop renovation of the Huntington Sheraton hotel was defeated last May.

In recent years in the San Gabriel Valley, the same initiative and referendum process that brought Proposition 13 to California has kicked city councilmen out of office, put a clamp on high-density construction in some localities, erased big development plans from the drawing board and generally shaken up a lot of elected officials and city administrators.

“You get a small group of people circulating petitions, and next thing you know, there are these mini-civil wars going on all over the city,” groused one city official from South Pasadena, whose fractious electorate has been called upon to decide half a dozen hot political issues in the past six years, from the location of City Hall to the height of new buildings.

Four hotly contested initiatives are now awaiting action by San Gabriel Valley voters--three citizen-initiated ballot measures on a plan to develop an Azusa golf course and one in San Gabriel calling for a one-year moratorium on all new multiunit housing projects. Citizen groups are also circulating petitions in South Pasadena in favor of the direct election of the mayor and urging stringent restrictions on new commercial strips or mini-malls.

Like it or not, the process has become part of the political furniture. This powerful tool to combat growth has even attracted the attention of developers who, frustrated at the slow pace of getting projects approved, have appealed directly to the voters, offering tax revenue and housing stock in exchange for voter-approved zone changes.

For San Gabriel Valley cities, like other general law cities, the process involves a series of steps that are strictly mandated in the state Election Code. Petitioners have to file with the city clerk, publish their petitions in local publications and submit all their signed petitions within 180 days of embarking on the process. If they garner signatures from 15% of the registered voters in town and the signatures are verified, the city must hold a special election. It takes 10% of the voters to place the measure on the ballot in the next regularly scheduled election.

Although some elected officials grouse privately about the disruptive effect of petitions, advocates of initiatives contend that they are evidence of a widespread political malaise. Why do voters appear to be taking up arms against their own elected officials? Because there is a growing perception that, under the pressure to build, all elected officials tend to lose sight of the needs of the people who elected them, the dissidents contend.

“Going to the initiative process is a last desperate measure,” says Norman Getschell, a South Pasadena real estate broker who has been involved in successful petition activities in his city to restrain development.

“I think citizens feel that government is no longer responsive to them,” he adds. “It’s funny. People change once they get into office. Who do they meet in the city council? They meet developers, activists, people like that. Not the guy who voted for them. Their perception of what they’re supposed to do is distorted by the fact that they no longer hear the community at large.”

Bitter Fight

The most acrimonious initiative battle right now is in Azusa, where opposing groups have sponsored petitions on plans to build housing, offices and factories on the present site of the Azusa Greens Country Club, whose broad fairways separate half a dozen residential complexes in northern Azusa.

On Oct. 6, voters will decide on two initiatives sponsored by the owner of the golf course, Santa Fe Springs real estate investor Johnny E. Johnson, who wants to shut down the golf course. One measure, circulated under the banner of a Johnson-financed citizens committee, ask the voters to approve a zone change, permitting developers to build 725 garden apartments, 450 single-family homes and almost eight acres of new offices and factories. Another Johnson-sponsored measure asks the voters to approve a $26-million bond issue to buy the golf course should the zone change be rejected.

A citizen-initiated ballot measure from the opposition, prohibiting the sale of the golf course, will be voted on in the city’s regularly scheduled election in April.

This is one of those emotional quality-of-life battles, pitting community stability against property rights, suggests Howard Kennedy, president of the Citizens Committee to Save Azusa Greens, whose home is on the edge of the golf course’s 11th fairway.

‘A Small Price’

Living near a golf course has its disadvantages, Kennedy said recently, sitting in his dining nook, with a sweeping view of the golf course out the big picture window. One day last month, he was gazing dreamily out the window, when he noticed a lone golfer off to the left. “He had hooked way out into the trees over there,” Kennedy said, “and he was trying to hook back out. He just smacked the ball, and it flew. Quite a shot, really. I sat there and watched it coming. ‘Oh, my gosh,’ I said. ‘It’s not moving, it’s coming straight at me.’ The thing just whistled into the window-- crash-- and there was a golf ball in my sink.”

But enduring an occasional broken window is the price you pay when live in a house like his, said the Azusa mortgage banker, laughing appreciatively. “Candidly, it’s a small price,” he said, gesturing toward the leafy scene, where golfers drifted slowly down the fairway, the gleaming metal handles of their irons catching the afternoon sun as they chopped at the turf.

Opponents of development contend that the golf course’s owner built it 22 years ago with a promise that it would stay there forever. Johnson, a spry, sporty-looking man who appears quite at home putting around a golf course, denies that. He’s really doing a big favor for most residents of Azusa, he says. All the new development, Johnson contends, will increase a needy city’s housing stock, add to the tax base and bring new consumers to the area.

Besides, the golf course is his, and he should be able to do what he wants with it, Johnson says. “They call it ‘our land,’ ” Johnson says of his opponents, with open-mouthed disbelief.

The story is a familiar one--another San Gabriel Valley community in heated debate over a plan to develop a big piece of real estate. The difference is that both sides have attacked the issue on the ballot.

“It’s pretty unusual,” says Azusa City Clerk Adolph Solis. “You don’t do initiatives every week.”

But two researchers who have compiled a list of “growth control ballot measures” in California since 1971 say that the trend is building significantly all across the state.

Linear Trend

LeRoy Graymer and Madelyn Glickfeld, both from the UCLA Public Policy Program, have counted 152 growth-control ballot initiatives in the state through 1986, with 24 pending this year. About a third of their admittedly incomplete list, based largely on reports from real estate brokers, came in 1986. The trend has been vaguely linear, says Graymer, with a lot of peaks and valleys in petitioning activity in the past 16 years. “But last year was certainly a major blip on the screen,” he said.

Graymer attributes the recent flurry of petitioning, largely a phenomenon of Northern California during the 1970s but a statewide one now, to the success of earlier efforts and an upturn in the economy.

“There’s more expertise there, more motivation to act on what may mobilize people,” he said. “There has also been a substantial amount of building going on since the recession (of the early 1980s), increasing the amount of growth that has occurred. You could speculate that there is, therefore, increased resistance on the part of citizens who are opposed to that.”

The past year has indeed been a boom year for petitions. Among other things, San Gabriel Valley voters have turned thumbs down on a 340-unit apartment complex in Claremont, booted the mayor and a city councilman out of office in Baldwin Park, turned back a recall of two city councilmen in Monterey Park, affirmed a controversial plan to remodel the Huntington hotel in Pasadena and repealed a utility tax in Alhambra--all through citizen-initiated petitions.

The petition circulators often talk about their activities in broadly idealistic terms, sometimes referring to the initiative and referendum process as “democracy in its purest form.”

Not in Constitution

“The initiative process was designed by our forefathers, so that when a large mass doesn’t like what the government does, it can make its own law,” says Greg O’Sullivan, chairman of Citizens for Responsible Development, which has spearheaded petition drives in San Gabriel, including the pending moratorium measure and a petition opposing a hotel-and-restaurant complex on the site of a former drive-in theater.

That’s a common misconception, experts say. There is no initiative provision in the U. S. Constitution. The first state to adopt the initiative, South Dakota, did so in 1898. So far, only 22 other states and the District of Columbia have followed suit. California’s initiative, referendum and recall amendment (a referendum is an initiative proposed specifically to reverse a council or board action) was enacted in 1911, during a period of Progressive reaction to the “domination of the legislative process by a few large economic interests,” according to Larry Orman, director of a study of land-use initiatives in the San Francisco Bay area.

The trouble is that politics have changed radically since 1911, some reformers complain.

“You have a situation where the rules of the game were written in the early part of the century, before such things as television, public opinion polling, computers and targeted direct mailings,” said Walt Klein, director of the Denver-based National Center for Initiative Review.

Consequently, Klein contends, ballot initiatives often become a tool of special interests. “It’s a boom industry in the United States,” he said. “I personally know political consultants who used to do a lot of campaign work who try to avoid doing that now. Instead, they go out and try to lock in the initiative business. They know that special interests pushing initiatives are usually a lot better funded than political candidates.”

For someone with a lot of money, an initiative can be a shortcut through the governmental process, bypassing the need to go through messy legislative hearings and votes.

‘50-50 Chance’

“Instead, you hire somebody to gather the signatures, rally a coalition of special interest groups around an idea and throw it out there in the arena,” says Klein. “There’s a 50-50 chance if it gets on the ballot that it will be enacted into law. And you don’t have to worry about hearings and that other stuff.”

The San Gabriel Valley has seen a few privately financed initiatives, raising accusations that “professional vote-getters” were manipulating the system, though the professionals have, so far, had little success in the San Gabriel Valley.

A Santa Monica-based campaign consultant firm, hired by the developers of a proposed twin-towers office complex (one 12 stories high, another 10 stories) near downtown South Pasadena, lost a close one in 1983 when opponents successfully petitioned to limit the height of buildings in the city. Among the factors cited for the loss were that the developers, who spent more than $50,000 opposing the height-limiting ballot measure while the grass-roots group favoring it spent less than $3,000, were too “slick” in their presentation.

Similar observations were made last year, when an Orange County developer presented his own petition in Claremont for a zone change, which would have permitted him to build a 340-unit apartment complex there. The City Council had opposed the measure. Despite outspending the opposition $123,000 to $2,000, the measure was defeated by better than 4 to 1.

“I think they beat themselves,” said one opponent of the development.

Opponents of Johnson’s plans for the Azusa Greens golf course hope that things are shaping up the same way. Johnson, using the Los Angeles-based consultant firm, the Wessell Co., has already outspent his grass-roots opponents $103,000 to $3,000. The firm has created a group called Azusa Taxpayers Committee, run largely by paid staff, to beat the drum for the claim that the city will benefit from developing the golf course.

Firm president Lynn Wessell responds testily to charges that Johnson is trying to “buy the election.” “All we’re doing is airing the issues in all of their aspects for the voters as a whole,” he says. “The opposition has a rather well-financed effort there.”

But Kennedy, the head of the opposition group, a bulky man with an expression of amused skepticism, holds his ground. “The people fighting Mr. Johnson are just like myself--volunteers,” he says. “For the number of hours we put in, frankly they couldn’t afford us.”

Grass-Roots Involvement

Those leading most petition drives in the San Gabriel Valley appear to be far from manipulators of the system. They are, for the most part, working people who feel they are suffering directly from the shortcomings of their city governments.

“People get involved when something gets next door to them,” says O’Sullivan, a San Gabriel fireman whose organization has shaken up San Gabriel with petitions, legal actions and steamy speeches at City Council meetings. “When you have to wait in a traffic jam or when you can only use one sprinkler because of the lack of water volume--when people are affected personally, they get motivated.”

The organization petitioned to reverse a City Council-approved zone change that permitted development of the Edwards Drive-In Theater on Valley Boulevard, then petitioned for a one-year moratorium on condominiums and apartment buildings. The drive-in measure was thrown out on a technicality by a Superior Court judge, but the moratorium measure will be on the ballot on Dec. 15. (The drive-in measure would have created an inconsistency between the zoning of the 11.5-acre site and the city’s general plan, which is against state law, said the judge.)

O’Sullivan scoffs at the notion that petition carriers in the San Gabriel Valley might be the dupes of special interests. “Those people would have a much better chance of getting to a city council than to qualify an initiative for the ballot,” he says.

Helen Simmons, the driving force behind the South Pasadena petitions on election of the mayor and restrictions on mini-malls, is a former City Council member. The head of the successful drive to defeat the proposal to build the twin towers four years ago, this soft-spoken lawyer has quietly become one of the most influential people in town, colleagues say.

She says she began her latest drive because of concern about the proliferation of mini-malls in neighboring cities and an apathetic response to her concerns by the City Council.

“A service station gets knocked down, and zip, one of these things is installed,” she said. “When the issue was raised at a council meeting, one councilman said we didn’t have to worry about it because nobody has applied for a mini-mall. But you don’t wait until somebody purchases a piece of property before you do something.”

Impelled by Idealism

But, mostly, she is impelled by idealism, she says. “Everyone complains about our federal government,” says Simmons, a one-term council member who says she prefers gritty street-level participation in city politics to the bombast of South Pasadena City Council meetings. “But we have to start paying attention to what happens at the local level, to realize that what happens at the federal level is just what’s going on at the local level multiplied a thousandfold.”

Getschell, Simmons’ ally in opposing the twin towers project, said he was idealistic, too. “I have nothing to gain by my philosophical bent,” said Getschell, who favors growth restraints in South Pasadena. “My stance has certainly not aided my (real estate) business.”

Sentiment in favor of initiatives in the San Gabriel Valley has assumed something of the coloration of mom and apple pie. Elected officials either endorse the idea or steer clear of discussing it.

“You won’t get anybody around here to talk about the initiative process,” said one city official in San Gabriel. “People are too close to it.”

But some critics believe that it should be reformed, contending, among other things, that petition circulators often misrepresent their petitions, that recall initiatives have slurred their targets and that citizen-initiated ballot measures, because they were written by amateurs, are often illegal or unconstitutional.

They can also needlessly clutter the governmental process, elected officials complain. “On the statewide ballot, they have their benefits,” said one South Pasadena official. “You can’t get to your state legislator--they’re almost untouchable. But in a small city like South Pasadena, anyone can pick up the phone and call their mayor or councilman. If you’re not particularly happy about what the council is doing, you can vote in members that will carry out your wishes. These initiatives just circumvent the process.”

Baldwin Park Mayor Leo W. King is still offended by a recall petition that threw him out of office last March. “There was no malfeasance, no stupidity, no not caring for the constituents, no conflict of interest--none of that applies here,” says King, who lost his job as councilman in the recall election but was subsequently elected mayor in July.

King and former Mayor Jack B. White (who lost his job as mayor in the March recall election but was subsequently elected to the council in July) were steamrollered by separate groups opposing a utility tax and a redevelopment plan, King contended.

‘Getting Into Personalities’

“They started getting more into personalities,” he said. “They were telling people who didn’t even live in the redevelopment area that they were going to lose their houses.” (Lorin Lovejoy, head of a homeowners group fighting redevelopment, denies that the petition was misrepresented.)

King proposes that there be a “for cause” provision included in the recall law. “I think they should first have to prove that a person is corrupt or making money off of city projects or missing a lot of council meetings,” he said.

But White fiercely defends the process. “Sometimes it’s a meat-ax approach to questions that require narrow answers,” he says. “But I think it’s a healthy valve. The next step is armed insurrection. Then you have a situation like South Korea, where there’s no way to change the process except what they’re doing now (with mass protests in the streets). Our system has to have this process.”

Developer Lary Mielke, whose company plans to renovate the historic Huntington Sheraton hotel, and others have complained that a ballot measure on demolishing the main structure of the hotel and replacing it with a replica was needlessly expensive. Mielke said he spent about $100,000 in successfully defeating the citizen initiative last spring.

“It was an expensive exercise--one that I don’t think was necessary,” says William Thompson, a member of the Pasadena Board of Directors, noting that almost twice the number of people signed the petition as voted against the development plan.

“People were just signing the petition to have it put on the ballot to enable the public to have a chance to vote on it,” he said. “I don’t quarrel with the rationale. It just proves that people don’t necessarily sign on the basis that they’re going to vote for it.”

Mielke does not quibble about the costly process itself. “People need to feel that they have a way of making their voices heard,” he said. He proposed only that professional petition circulators be prohibited from participating in the process.

“I know there are situations where young people, such as college students, have been hired to gather petition signatures,” he said. “That doesn’t seem to be what the process is all about.”

Mielke said that he had heard reports that college students were paid to solicit signatures in the election, but he said he had no facts to back up the report.

City attorneys complain that some petitions that have been circulated in the area have been illegal. Two petitions that qualified for ballots--the San Gabriel petition on the rezoning for the drive-in theater and a Monterey Park petition last year that would have made English the official language of the city--were thrown out by the courts because of legal issues raised by poor wording. Both the San Gabriel moratorium petition and the South Pasadena anti-mini-mall petition may be heading for similar fates, according to lawyers from their respective cities.

The League of Women Voters has proposed a bill requiring that all statewide petitions be reviewed, before they are circulated, by the Secretary of State, who would check them for clarity of language and potential legal problems. Similar legislation is under consideration by the state Legislature to require city attorneys to review local petitions, according to Larry Orman, who heads a nonprofit group concerned with local land-use issues in San Francisco.

Baldwin Park Councilman White says that the process, particularly the recall provision, can be unfair. “Don’t forget, there’s always a 30% vote that’s unhappy with the system, regardless,” he said. “Add that to the acute discontent segment, and you’re in trouble. At least in an election, the voters compare your warts against your opponent’s warts. In the recall election, it was my ideas against utopia.”

White and other experienced elected officials, however, expressed faith in the ultimate wisdom of the voters in using the potent weapon of the initiative.

“Take Proposition 13,” White said. “I was against it at the time, but the people wanted it. I think it turned out to be a pretty wise thing. I guess, in the long run, the people are normally right in what they do, though it can cause some of us some short-term disadvantages.”

“Ultimately, it’s good that the initiative process exists,” added Pasadena’s Thompson. “It forces government at all levels to be really attentive to the wishes of its citizens.”

SOME KEY PLAYERS IN THE PETITION PROCESSJohnny E. Johnson

The Santa Fe Springs real estate investor, who owns Azusa Greens Country Club, wants to shut it down and build housing and commercial developments on the land. He has sponsored two initiatives on the Oct. 6 Azusa ballot: one for a zone change allowing the project, and another seeking a bond issue allowing the city to buy the golf course should the zone change be rejected. A citizen-initiated measure seeking to prohibit sale of the golf course will be voted on in April.

Helen Simmons

She is a lawyer, former South Pasadena City Council member and the driving force behind petitions being circulated in that city seeking direct election of the mayor and urging stringent restrictions on new commercial strips or mini-malls. When the mini-mall issue was raised, “one councilman said we didn’t have to worry about it because nobody has applied for a mini-mall. But you don’t wait until somebody purchases a piece of property before you do something,” she said.

Greg O’Sullivan

He is chairman of Citizens for Responsible Development, which is spearheading a petition drive in San Gabriel for a one-year moratorium on condominiums and apartment buildings. That measure will be on the ballot Dec. 15. “People get involved when something gets next door to them,” the city firefighter said. “When you have to wait in a traffic jam or when you can only use one sprinkler because of the lack of water volume--when people are affected personally, they get motivated.”