3 Howard Allies Make Runoff for Burbank City Council

Six City Council candidates, including two incumbents and three candidates endorsed by Councilwoman Mary Lou Howard, qualified for the April 9 Burbank general election, according to unofficial returns from Tuesday night’s Burbank municipal primary.

Two ballot measures that called for the elimination of the City Council’s at-large election system and the creation of five council districts were defeated, with a 58% no vote out of 11,328 ballots cast.

In the closest race of the primary, Board of Education incumbent Audrey Hanson came in only 500 votes ahead of third-place finisher Tomme J. Lenz in the race for two seats. Vivian Kaufman won the second open seat.

Rout in City Clerk Race

In the one rout, Assistant City Clerk Merle L. Maurer defeated her two challengers by better than 5-to-1 margins in the city clerk race.

In the City Council races for three seats, the three leading vote-getters--Mary Kelsey, Michael Hastings and Al Dossin--all had waged campaigns based on ousting the two incumbents in the race. The incumbents, Daniel Remy and Larry Stamper, ran fourth and sixth, according to the unofficial returns.

Finishing fifth, and also qualifying for the runoff in the April election, was Brian Bowman, who was considered an ally of the two incumbents.

Another incumbent councilman, Leland Ayers, did not seek reelection.

Had any candidates received 50% of the vote, they would not have had to compete in the general election. But none received a majority, so the top six candidates qualify for the runoff. Each voter could choose three candidates in the City Council race.

City Clerk Evelyn Haley said just under 25% of the city’s registered voters went to the polls, which she called average for a primary.

The emergence of the six finalists from among 18 council candidates set the stage for a runoff campaign that will reflect the division on the current City Council between factions led by Remy and Howard.

Kelsey, Hastings and Dossin were all endorsed by Howard, who has made no secret of her wish to unseat Remy and Stamper and replace them with council members more sympathetic to her views on issues ranging from city appointments to awarding of redevelopment contracts.

Remy had predicted Monday that he would win a majority of the vote and would not need to compete in the general election. He charged that Howard was orchestrating a “takeover” of the city government.

Ran Against City Hall

Most of the challengers ran against City Hall, targeting Remy, who serves as mayor, and Stamper for defeat.

The challengers charged that the incumbents had been insensitive to the problems that commercial development, particularly in the blossoming Media District, have created for residential neighborhoods.

Most of the candidates called for better city planning and closer scrutiny of developers’ proposals to build in the city’s three redevelopment zones.

Several members of the Neighborhood Awareness Committee, which wrote the two ballot measures and circulated petitions that qualified them for the ballot, made no secret during the campaign of their intention to oust the incumbents.

The measures would have required that council members live in the districts they represent.