Favored Candidate Drops Out : Acosta May Yet Run for Santa Ana Mayor

Santa Ana Councilman John Acosta, who announced last week that he would not run for mayor in November, said Monday he is reconsidering because the candidate he favored has dropped out.

Vernon S. Evans, a former mayor and 10-year council member during the 1970s, said Monday that he had decided not to file nomination papers for the mayoral post. “I just can’t take on any additional meetings or time commitments,” said Evans, vice president of Chicago Title Insurance Co. in Santa Ana.

Last Friday, just two days after Evans took out his papers intending to run, Acosta said he would defer to Evans in their effort to oust Mayor Dan Young and would run for reelection to his council seat instead of mayor.

On Monday, however, Acosta said there is “a good chance” he will now enter the race.

“I don’t want to be premature,” Acosta said. “Today’s a bad day to give it much thought, but we’re going to reassess our position.” Acosta said he may reach a decision by Wednesday.

‘Play a Safe Race’

Acosta said a poll he commissioned for $5,000 shows him leading both Young and Wilson B. Hart, his potential rival for the council seat, by wide margins. But Young’s access to wealthy developers could enable him to make the race considerably tighter by November--a factor that contributed to Acosta’s decision last week to run for a council seat instead, Acosta said.

“My interest is to play a safe race,” he said. “If I do decide to run for mayor, we very definitely will release the results of that survey.”

Acosta said that some developers have told him they are being pressured by Young and his council allies, Hart and Daniel E. Griset, to withhold contributions they might otherwise make to Acosta’s campaign.

“I tell them, ‘Look, I don’t want to see you in my office the day after my election with a check in your pocket,’ ” said Acosta. “If you want to contribute to John Acosta, you do it up front and now. . . . Access to a politician is important, and if they turn their back, maybe John Acosta will be a little too busy to talk to them when they call.”

Young, whose well-funded campaign got under way last month with the mailing of about 5,000 letters to Santa Ana voters, scoffed at Acosta’s claims about his poll.

‘No Place to Hide’

“I never have met a politician who backed out of a race when his own poll showed him 2 to 1 ahead,” said Young. “He’s trying to find a place he can hide on the ballot . . . But there’s no place to run because there’s no place to hide.”

Young also charged that Acosta is vacillating between running and not running for mayor to get more media attention. “He’s just trying to get press attention anyway he knows how, even if it means lying to the press one day or the next,” said Young. “He’s got serious ethical problems . . . he cannot survive.”

Young said Acosta’s ethical problems include a misdemeanor charge pending against him in court for an alleged zoning violation involving his masonry business’s storage yard and his company’s bid for construction work on a city fire station. Acosta has said the bid was an oversight by one of his employees.

Also Monday, former Santa Ana Unified School District Board member Sadie Reid-Benham took out papers to run for mayor. She has run for City Council, school board and the county Board of Supervisors.