Dawn Crawford vs Dirty County Politicians and  Officials

LOMA LINDA - Voters will go to the polls June 3 to fill a majority of seats on the Loma Linda City Council in an election with far-reaching impact on the city's future.

Three incumbents on the five-member council are facing challenges from four candidates.

Mayor Robert Christman, the ranking councilman in terms of seniority, faces tough competition in his bid for a sixth four-year term. Three challengers say they want to see him defeated.

Stan Brauer, an anesthesiologist at Loma Linda University Medical Center who once won a council seat in a coin flip, is seeking his fifth term.

Rhodes "Dusty" Rigsby, an assistant dean at the university's medical school, is seeking a full, four-year term after having won the right two years ago to complete the term of former Councilwoman Karen Gaio Hansberger. She resigned.

Ovidiu Popescu, a leader of a citizens group called Save Loma Linda, is trying again to win a seat after an unsuccessful bid two years ago. He is hoping to ride the crest of public support for Save Loma Linda's growth-control initiative Measure V, approved by voters in November 2006.

The other three challengers are newcomers to Loma Linda council campaigning: San Bernardino County sheriff's Detective Phillip Dupper, retired Loma Linda Academy administrator Lem Leialoha and biologist Jeffrey Sonnentag.

Leialoha, the first council candidate to come from the newly annexed community of Bryn Mawr, lived in Loma Linda 25 years before moving to that neighborhood five years ago. He serves on the city's redevelopment advisory committee.

Dupper and Sonnentag are new to Loma Linda campaigning. Sonnentag declined to participate in an in-person interview.

The winners will serve four-year terms, joining former Mayor Floyd Petersen and Councilman Robert Ziprick, both longtime council members who have been critical of Measure V. Along with Christman, they tried unsuccessfully to put the competing Measure U on the November 2006 ballot. That measure, like Measure V, was aimed at preserving land in the sprawling, 3,000-acre South Hills from development.

Measure V won, and because it received more votes than its competitor, Measure U failed.

Endorsements

Popescu, one of the drafters of Measure V, said he wants to take Christman's seat on the council and is endorsing Brauer and Rigsby.

Rigsby is endorsing Brauer and Popescu and also wants to see Christman defeated.

Christman said he is offering to endorse Brauer, but wants Popescu defeated because Save Loma Linda has sued the city. The lawsuit, which challenges the city's handling of its general plan to guide growth after Measure V's passage, likely will have a court hearing just before voters decide the council election.

Dupper is endorsing Popescu and wants to see all three incumbents defeated. Leialoha and Brauer said they are endorsing no one.

Measure V

The major issues in the campaign -- growth and traffic -- flow from positions on Measure V, which governs both.

The initiative imposes 7,200-square-foot minimum lot sizes, building height limitations, restrictions on housing density in the South Hills and a much-debated requirement that developers mitigate traffic that their projects would generate when that traffic would worsen congestion on major streets.

While the city's legal and consulting fees since passage of Measure V are likely to top $1 million in the coming year, much of the debate over the initiative has centered on when, rather than if, developers must mitigate traffic impact.

Critics of the measure said it could be interpreted as requiring that traffic improvements be completed before construction starts. In the case of some development -- including proposals for Loma Linda Academy and Loma Linda University along Anderson Street -- critics say the measure renders those plans unbuildable because the cost of fixing Anderson's bottleneck at Interstate 10 hangs on $50 million or more in federal funding that is years away.

Initiative proponents say that the so-called "concurrency" argument is an extreme misinterpretation of Measure V aimed at torpedoing support for it.

Opinions

Christman says he wouldn't mind seeing Measure V repealed, "but that's not what I'm pushing for. I am pushing for clarification."

He said he wants the measure adjusted to allow the city to trade with developers to obtain land in the SouthHills to complete a trail system there.

He also wants the concurrency question resolved. Most likely, he said, that will require a new ballot measure.

Popescu said he sees no reason for either repealing or amending Measure V.

"Any confusing interpretation is done for the sole purpose of undoing many of the stronger development provisions in Measure V," he said.

"I think we need to have a council that will be more proactive in acquiring federal and state and county funds and try to do the necessary traffic mitigations," he said.

Popescu contends that the council has the power to interpret the measure "in a fair and sensible manner."

Rigsby said he believes the measure "can be very easily clarified" and that he has made an effort to bring both sides together to hammer out the details.

"Measure V is much more benign than its detractors believe it to be," he said. "The only problem I see with what the detractors are doing, is they are trying to play 'I told you so.' "

He said he does not believe Measure V requires concurrency.

Brauer said he believes the measure needs clarification and that it can be done through negotiation.

He said he could bring about the negotiations because he is neutral on the issues. He said he did not take a position on either Measure V or Measure U.

Brauer said he would favor the council placing a clarification measure on the ballot.

Traffic "is a huge issue" in Loma Linda, he said. He said he deserves some of the credit for improvements planned at the Anderson Street-Tippecanoe Avenue ramps with Interstate 10 and the widening of bridges on Mountain View Avenue.

Brauer said he still has concerns about the design of the Anderson interchange because the plans do not include fly-over ramps and other improvements necessary to untangle the intersection.

Leialoha said Measure V is fine as written.

"There will be lots of chances down the line to make corrections or additions," he said. "At this point there is nothing to change."

He said traffic on major streets in Loma Linda, including Anderson, could be reduced by replacing medians with "zip lanes" that can be converted from one direction to the other depending on demand during the day.

"We have to be smart about growth," he said. "We know that the town has to grow. Any city has to grow. But right now we need to get our traffic controls in place. We need to get parking situated."

He said the city should work with the university and downtown businesses to build a parking structure.

Dupper said Measure V does not need to be repealed or clarified.

"If anything, it should be strengthened," he said. "I believe that we need to take a closer look at what we're protecting and protect other things, too. Not only the hills. We need to look at how we do business in Loma Linda and try to keep it a small community."

He said he sees Loma Linda as a bedroom community that should not attempt to attract more businesses.

"I believe it is a small, safe, quiet community that needs to stay that way," he said. "I don't think it needs growth in housing."

He said the city's major thoroughfares, especially Redlands Boulevard and Anderson, are not equipped to handle the traffic they already carry. The most important thing the council should do, Dupper said, is to ensure that adding development does not worsen traffic.

Reach Darrell R. Santschi at 909-806-3067 or dsantschi@PE.com