Personal Feud Eclipses Issues in Burbank Council Race : BURBANK: Heated Charges Eclipse Issues in Council Election

Burbank Mayor E. Daniel Remy smiled slyly during a City Council candidates’ forum last week when asked if his backers among city officials would be removed from office if he lost in Tuesday’s general election.

“Let me talk about the person who started this talk,” said Remy, one of two incumbents on the City Council running for reelection. “Well, I’d like to tell you who it is, but I can’t mention her by name.”

The audience, all members of the Kiwanis Club of Burbank, chuckled knowingly because the remark had made it obvious who he was referring to: Councilwoman Mary Lou Howard, Remy’s chief adversary on the five-member council. Howard has endorsed three of the four candidates running against Remy and fellow incumbent Larry Stamper for three council seats.

Although Howard is not up for reelection, her presence has been deeply felt in the bitter campaign because the three candidates she is backing sympathize with her views on redevelopment and residents’ rights. Remy has asserted that a City Council dominated by Howard would oust City Manager Andrew Lazzaretto, City Atty. William B. Rudell and “anyone who gets in its way” as it attempts to put a stop to further growth.

Accusations Traded

Even though redevelopment remains the major issue of the campaign, the proposals and platforms of the candidates have been almost overshadowed by Remy and Howard trading charges of corruption, conflict of interest and unethical practices.

The campaign is another manifestation of the longstanding dispute between the two incumbent candidates, who favor growth, and Howard, who says she feels that rapid redevelopment may endanger the tranquility of Burbank neighborhoods.

Howard has said that Remy and Stamper have tried to control the council with an “old-boy” mentality in which deals are made with developers without considering the consequences to residents. But Remy contends that Howard and three of the challengers endorsed by her want to return Burbank to “an awkward, decaying little town that it was 10 or 15 years ago.”

During recent weeks, Remy and Stamper have fired verbal volleys at the council candidates endorsed by Howard--Mary E. Kelsey, Michael Hastings and Al Dossin--who were the three top vote-getters of 18 candidates in the February primary election. Remy finished fourth and Stamper sixth.

Political Puppets

Both incumbents have claimed that the Howard-backed candidates have not established individual platforms or campaigned actively in the community and are merely political puppets of Howard in her attempt to adapt the council to her philosophy.

At the same time, Kelsey, Hastings and Dossin have accused Remy of alienating Burbank residents by behaving rudely, suppressing information on government projects and alleged deals with developers, mailing misleading flyers, filing his campaign financial statement more than a week late and setting up one-sided candidate forums.

Relatively detached from the battle between the two factions is businessman Brian Bowman, who finished fifth in the primary, the only non-incumbent candidate to qualify for the runoff without a Howard endorsement. Although Bowman, 48, a businessman and former vice chairman of the Burbank Planning Board, has been regarded by some as a favorite to succeed retiring City Councilman Leland Ayers, he said he has taken a more independent stand, favoring redevelopment but seeing the need for an update of the city’s master redevelopment plan.

Motives Questioned

Remy, 50, an executive at Lockheed Corp., said he was angered by Howard’s vocal involvement in the campaign. “Why is she getting involved? What is Mary Lou Howard running for?” he said in an interview. “It’s a takeover. These three people she’s backing are running for office, but they’re nowhere to be seen. Their spokesperson and mouthpiece is Mrs. Howard. Her stated purpose is to get rid of me and Stamper. If we lose, she may try to rename the city ‘Howardsville’ for all I know.”

However, Howard denied that she was trying to engineer a takeover, and that Remy and Stamper have made her an issue in the campaign.

“They feel that I should not have gotten involved, but being on the council doesn’t take away my right to support the candidate of my choice,” Howard said. “And my choice is not them. The citizens have seen the arrogance and domineering attitude these men have shown over the past four years, and they are ready to take their government back.”

The dispute was spotlighted again last week when the Los Angeles County district attorney’s office said there was no evidence to support an allegation that Howard and her husband violated state law prohibiting conflicts of interest by public officials. The accusations were forwarded to the district attorney’s office by City Attorney William Rudell, a political opponent of Howard.

Land Acquisition Attempt

Those accusations centered around an attempt by Howard’s husband to acquire land for a law office in the city redevelopment zone. Howard is a member of the Burbank Redevelopment Agency.

Late last month, Howard accused Remy of accepting a large campaign contribution during his 1977 City Council campaign from John M. Johnstone, who is an associate of fireworks manufacturer W. Patrick Moriarty, the central figure in a political corruption scandal. After Remy was elected, Howard said, Remy supported the writing of a ballot amendment to allow the discharge of fireworks in Burbank. The amendment was defeated.

Remy last week denied any wrongdoing, saying he had not known who Johnstone was when he accepted the contribution, which he said was a $250 check. “If someone is going to buy Daniel Remy, it will be for a whole lot more than $250, a whole lot more,” Remy said.

Remy also was attacked by his opponents for filing his campaign financial statement more than a week after the March 28 deadline.

‘Above the Law’

“Why does Remy think he is above the law?” said Hastings, 31, an advertising executive. “What does he have to hide? He should be as responsible as the rest of us in turning in his statement. This was completely unethical and subversive.”

Remy, who has collected almost $25,000 in his campaign--more than any other candidate--said his campaign treasurer had been preoccupied with his wife’s pregnancy and had failed to organize the statement. The financial statement was finally audited by an accounting firm and filed Friday.

According to the financial statements of the other candidates, filed before the deadline, Bowman collected more than $15,000 in contributions, Dossin collected more than $9,000, Hastings $1,387, Kelsey $2,288 and Stamper $1,234.

Representatives from three Burbank employees’ organizations who have endorsed Kelsey, Hastings and Dossin also attacked Remy last week, saying that he mailed a flyer misrepresenting their salary negotiations formula and the reasons for their endorsement of the Howard-backed candidates.

Salary Comparisons

In listing the salaries of various city employees, Remy compared them to the average salaries of workers in Beverly Hills, Culver City, Glendale, Inglewood, Pasadena and Santa Monica. He also hinted that Kelsey, Hastings and Dossin had “promised something” to the unions in exchange for their support.

“He compared our salaries to cities we are not allowed to compare ourselves to in salary negotiations,” said police Sgt. Don Brown, president of the Burbank Police Officers Assn., which endorsed Remy and Stamper in 1981. “He put in that police officers make $46,989. I’ve never made that kind of money in my whole career.

“And as far as what we were promised by the other candidates, we didn’t ask for anything other than what we asked Remy and Stamper for four years ago--an open ear and fairness. We don’t feel we’ve gotten that, and there is a morale problem among the employees in this city.”

Brown said he and representatives from the Burbank Employees Assn. and the local of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers complained to Remy about the flyer. Remy sent out another flyer later in the week, saying that the salaries mentioned in the first mailer included retirement and negotiated fringe benefits. But he continued to maintain that the public employees’ unions were pursuing “an unprecedented power grab.”

Pushed for Growth

Both Remy, who has served on the council for two terms, and Stamper, 49, a minister at the First United Methodist Church in Burbank who has served one term on the council, have leaned toward growth and redevelopment of the city during their terms. That growth, they said, includes approval of new construction in the Media District, a restaurant row in downtown Burbank and plans for a regional shopping mall. Both incumbents, along with Bowman, have been endorsed by the Burbank Board of Realtors.

“This city has really turned around in the last couple of years,” Stamper said. “Burbank is in the healthiest financial position it has been for several years.” He said the city was facing a $600,000 deficit during the 1982-83 fiscal year, but now has $10 million in surplus operating funds in the bank. He also said that property tax revenue has increased 60% over the past four years and that there has been a $650-million increase in the assessed value of property.

“This city is on a roll,” said Remy. “This is an exciting, vibrant time that has never happened in our city before. Burbank will be the envy of everybody.”

But the incumbents’ opponents maintained that Burbank may be growing too fast.

Planned Growth Needed

“We’re not against growth, but we feel there has to be planned growth,” said candidate Kelsey, 68, a former chairwoman of the Burbank Planning Board and a critic of the proposed Towncenter shopping mall. Kelsey said the council improperly marketed the restaurant row properties in downtown Burbank, now occupied by three restaurants, and sold them for less than what they were worth.

“The redevelopment of this city is not planned well enough,” Kelsey said. “The General Plan for this town needs to be updated.”

At the forefront of the planning dispute is the proposed Towncenter Mall, a 150-store shopping center that would include four major department stores. Opponents of the incumbents said the proposal has been beset by failed promises and stalled negotiations.

Hastings said the city’s tentative approval last month for a proposal to build a museum for Western memorabilia owned by former singing cowboy Gene Autry was illustrative of officials’ failure to be honest with citizens. Stamper was the main supporter of the proposal, but residents have raised an uproar about the proposed site for the museum, which would tear up part of Burbank’s Buena Vista Park.

‘Slap in the Face’

“That proposal was a direct slap in the face for the people of Burbank,” said Hastings. “It’s another example of councilmen running their city and not telling the public. We need full disclosure and an open line of communication.”

But Remy and Stamper both said the three front-runners have failed to keep an open line of communication with voters. Only Bowman and the incumbents appeared at a candidates’ forum last week at the Kiwanis Club, and Kelsey, Hastings and Dossin also refused to answer a questionnaire issued by the Burbank Chamber of Commerce.

“There’s no evidence that they’re even around,” Remy said. “All they do is sneak around in the dark and leave smear literature on people’s cars.”

Stamper and Remy both lambasted Hastings, who told citizens at a recent forum that he didn’t vote in the 1983 municipal election because he had been unaware of it. “That shows what kind of person is running for City Council,” Remy said.

Hastings replied that he had not started looking into city politics until two years ago. “Until then, I guess I thought everything was great, but then I started to see how poorly run this city really was.”

Both Sides Predict Victory

Bowman and the candidates on both sides of the Remy-Howard split said they were confident that they would score victories Tuesday. “I have a lot of confidence that I will win,” said Dossin, 55, an insurance agent. “It’s time to give the city government more credibility, and put people in who will be more sensitive to the citizens.”

“I’m going to win; that’s my prediction,” Remy said. “I don’t feel there’s an anti-incumbent feeling. I’ll find out Tuesday whether this city will continue to move forward or whether I’ll be water-skiing for the next four years.”