Incumbents, School Board Chief Win Council Race

With the lowest voter turnout in memory, Tuesday’s municipal election in Glendale produced few surprises by returning two incumbents, Ginger Bremberg and John F. Day, to the City Council and by confirming what was widely thought to be school board President Carl Raggio’s unbeatable bid for a council seat.

Bremberg, the only woman on the council, was the biggest vote-getter of the six candidates competing for three seats. She garnered 7,410 votes, or 23.7% of the total, followed by Raggio, with 6,455, or 20.7%, and Day, with 6,376, or 20.4%.

Mark Doyle, a Glendale Community College professor who was the only candidate who lives in southern Glendale, tallied 5,160 votes, 16.5% of the total. William Mulvihill, a high school teacher, received 3,083 votes, or 9.9%, and graphic artist Larry Lousen got 2,757, which was 8.8%.

Few Issues

Candidates and city officials blamed the voter turnout of only 15.1% on a campaign that lacked many issues or fireworks plus the fact that families are out of town during their children’s spring vacation from school. City Clerk Merle Hagemeyer, who was held his post since 1976 and was reelected Tuesday without opposition, said the turnout appeared to be a record low, after turnouts of 19% in 1983 and 24% in 1981.

Bremberg, who won her first term four years ago after a defeat in 1979, called Tuesday’s turnout “pitiful,” even though she said it might somewhat reflect feelings that the city is so well-run that there is not much to stir voters up.

“Glendale has always been on a steady, conservative course for almost 80 years. It’s a place where things get done. It’s not a community noted for ‘turning the rascals out’ on just a whim if the job is being done.” Still, she said she was “terribly disappointed” by the turnout.

Debate on Rezoning

The biggest--some candidates said only--issue in the campaign involved the arduous process now under way of rezoning the entire city so that it conforms with the 1977 General Plan. Some of the original rezoning proposals--such as making the residential pocket of the Grand Central neighborhood open to industrial development--so enraged citizens that the council dropped the ideas.

But on the current council, only Day said he wants to stop the entire rezoning process; any zoning change requires four of the five council votes and Day has been unable to even get a second to his motions.

With Mayor Carroll Parcher, a supporter of rezoning, about to retire from the council, Raggio, as the newcomer, will be a possible swing vote on rezoning. “I would hope to win him over,” Day said Tuesday night.

Day, a retired banker who won his third term, said he is especially concerned that the city could face many lawsuits over the proposed rezoning. With some exceptions, much of the city is proposed for lower densities, allowing the city’s current population of nearly 150,000 to rise to a maximum 200,000, contrasted with current zoning, which would allow 300,000.

Raggio’s View

However, Raggio, who is an aerospace engineering manager at the Jet Propulsion Lab and has served on the school board for 12 years, said Tuesday that he generally supports the concept of rezoning, although he wants to move more slowly.

“My gut feeling is that there is a need to do something,” he said. “But that must be commensurate with continuity and comfort. Frankly, that’s why people move to Glendale. They want to keep things in the comfort zone. We may have been moving awfully fast on this and may have startled them.”

Raggio said his other priorities would be to tackle the downtown parking and traffic problems and to begin to investigate ways to make affordable housing available to young families. He said he would like to study the possibility of having the redevelopment agency encourage town house construction so that young people who grew up in Glendale can afford to stay in town.

Resignation Coming

With such issues in mind, Raggio said he would resign as chairman of the Verdugo Private Industry Council, an organization that works with local businessmen to develop federally funded job-training programs. Because he deals with so many local businessmen, to remain in the job could pose conflicts of interest, he said.

Most candidates and City Hall insiders said the council races turned out as expected with the incumbencies of Day and Bremberg and Raggio’s name recognition being unbeatable. Even Raggio conceded that he had few doubts. “Like everyone else, I thought there were really only three people in the race,” he said. “So coming in second was a little icing on the cake.”

Raggio raised the most campaign funds, spending reports filed March 21 indicate. He reported that he raised more than $7,600, followed by Bremberg with $7,500 and Day with $6,800. Doyle said he had raised $1,600 but incurred a debt by spending $3,200. The other two candidates, Mulvihill and Lousen, indicated they had spent less than $500.

Final Reports Later

Final spending reports, however, are not required until June, when some of the top three candidates may show that they have spent more than $10,000, they say.

Since candidacy filings in January, Doyle was thought by many to be the strongest after Bremberg, Day, and Raggio. He had a natural constituency in southern Glendale, where some residents feel unrepresented. All current council members and Raggio live in the more northerly and more affluent neighborhoods. Doyle has many contacts with young voters through his position as a sociology professor and with the elderly through his work with the Glendale Council on Aging and his research in gerontology. There was even speculation that he would be particularly strong on absentee ballots from nursing homes.

Doyle said that many of the vacationing students who might have voted for him may have instead gone to the beach to enjoy Tuesday’s hot weather. As for the elderly, he said he may have mistakenly thought that his activities spoke for themselves. “You live and learn,” he said, summing up his campaign experience. “Maybe I was naive.”

No Plans to Run Again

Doyle, who is retiring from the college this year, said he had no plans to run again in 1987, although he might be open to accepting some appointed position. Raggio said he thought that Doyle “was a wonderful resource” the city might call on, especially on issues involving senior citizens.

Council members are scheduled to be sworn in at a special meeting that begins at 8 p.m. Monday in City Hall. At that time, the council members are expected to select a new mayor, a largely ceremonial post that lasts a year. Since the mayoralty does not go to a newcomer and since both Day and Bremberg have served in the position already, the job is expected to go to either of the two other council members, Larry Zarian or Jerold F. Milner. Zarian and Milner are not up for election again until 1987.

The ceremony is expected to be particularly emotional in the usually low-key government because it will be Parcher’s farewell. A 10-year-veteran of the council, former publisher of the Glendale News-Press and the son of Glendale’s first mayor, Parcher is widely known as “Mr. Glendale.”

Treasurer Race

In other races Tuesday, incumbent Elizabeth Evans beat Lynn McGinnis in the race for city treasurer. Evans, a former assistant treasurer who was appointed to the top treasury post last fall after the retirement of her boss, Pauline Lockhart, received 6,030 votes, or 55.5 %. McGinnis, a banker who put up a strong campaign of precinct walking and advertising, received 4,842 votes, or 44.5 %.

With Raggio’s switch to the council, two incumbents were running for reelection to the school board and both of them, Jane Whitaker and June Sweetnam, won. Whitaker won her second four-year term with 9,000 votes, or 29.4 %, and Sweetnam her third term with 8,566 votes, which was 28%.

There was a tight race between the two other candidates competing for the one other available school board seat. Lawyer Charles Whitesell, past president of the Glendale High Boosters, garnered 6,742 votes, only 461 more than Richard Matthews, who is corporate vice president of communications for Carnation Co. Whitesell, who will be the only male member of the board, received 22% of the vote, narrowly edging Matthews, who received 20.5 %.

Children in Private School

Board members and City Council candidates said they thought Matthews was hurt by the fact that he took his children out of the Glendale public school system three years ago after the sixth period was eliminated for junior high students in a budget crunch. Matthews, who ran for the board and lost in 1983, said he feared the youngsters would be getting an inadequate education.

All three winners said their top priority is reinstatement of the sixth period for seventh- and eighth-graders. Whitesell, who never ran for office before, also stressed the need for better nighttime security at schools to prevent vandalism.

Three incumbents on the Glendale Community College Board of Trustees had no opposition. The top vote getter was Kenneth Sweetnam (no relation to June Sweetnam), with 9,566, or 34.1%, followed by Ted Tiffany, with 9,411 votes, or 33.6%, and Phillip Kazanjian, 9,065, or 32.3%.