Challenger Defeats Mayor in San Bernardino Runoff

Mayor W. R. (Bob) Holcomb, in the first serious challenge for his office in 14 years, was defeated Tuesday in a runoff election against businesswoman Evlyn Wilcox.

With all of the ballots counted late Tuesday, Wilcox had garnered 12,651 votes to Holcomb’s 10,960.

“We didn’t expect this size of a lead,” said Wilcox, a Republican who will be San Bernardino’s first woman mayor.

“This means a change in the style of leadership in this city,” she told supporters at a victory party at the Hilton Hotel in San Bernardino. “It means our business will be conducted in a professional manner now.”

Meanwhile, Holcomb supporters, who gathered at a restaurant on the north side of town, glumly watched the election results on television.

‘People Were Fed Up’

“It’s all over,” Holcomb political adviser Gary Ayala said. “If we lost, it’s because people were fed up with the Holcomb mythology.”

Holcomb, 61, a Democrat, campaigned on his record. He claimed responsibility for taking shotguns off fire trucks in minority neighborhoods during the 1970s, for establishing numerous community service organizations, bringing about a renaissance in downtown development and pioneering use of redevelopment and mortgage bonds.

Wilcox, the 59-year-old owner of a personnel agency making her first bid for political office, made Holcomb’s contentious personality the focus of her campaign.

Wilcox, who finished second in the March 19 primary with 38.8% vote compared to Holcomb’s 41.2%, assailed what she called Holcomb’s “dictatorship style of leadership” and track record of rowdy behavior at City Council meetings.

Holcomb, she said, had become a source of embarrassment for the city, which is trying to shake off its low-brow image. Throughout the bitter contest she rained ridicule on the mayor by recounting his “antics.”

For example, Holcomb shoved the city attorney at a party in 1972, called the editor and publisher of the major newspaper in town the “Bobsey Boys” in 1980 and told a councilman he was “perfect horse’s ass” in 1983.

‘You Are a Gorilla’

During a candidates’ forum on April 23, Holcomb was visibly shaken when Wilcox played a tape recording of an especially disruptive budget hearing presided over by the mayor in 1983.

Above a cacophony of voices on the recording, Holcomb was heard screaming at Councilman Steve Marks: “I’m beginning to believe you are a gorilla in heat!”

Such attacks put Holcomb--who compares himself to President Harry S. Truman--on the defensive in the final days of this city’s most expensive mayoral campaign ever. He implored voters to “judge me not by my style, but by my results.”

Holcomb expected to spend $200,000 on his campaign, more money than in his last four elections combined. The mayor’s job pays $32,000 a year. Holcomb also went door to door in the city’s seven wards, which he had never done before.

In his other four election campaigns, Holcomb swamped his opponents in the primaries. So he was stunned when Wilcox garnered only 438 fewer votes than he did in the last primary.

Still, Holcomb counted on rolling up votes in the black communities, where he is credited with cooling racial tensions in the 1970s. About 15% of the city’s 131,000 residents are black.

Wilcox planned to spend about $100,000 on her campaign and expected to fare best among women and business owners. Under a campaign banner of “Holcomb Busters--18 Years Is Just Too Long,” she banked heavily on newspaper advertisements and targeted mail to make her name better known among likely voters.