Variety Is the Spice of Hawthorne Politics

Two incumbents face four opponents in a hard-fought City Council race in which the issues include intense residential development, crime, traffic and parking.

In the mayoral contest, which is separate from the council race, Councilwoman and Mayor Pro Tem Betty J. Ainsworth faces John B. Bernadou. The mayoral race was opened up when incumbent Guy Hocker, the first elected mayor of Hawthorne, decided not to run for reelection.

In the election for city clerk, incumbent Patrick E. Keller faces Ann M. Werhan, a long-time Hawthorne community figure who has accused Keller of shirking his duties as clerk, a charge he disputes.

City Treasurer Howard Wohlner is running unopposed in his reelection bid.

The various campaigns are taking place in a 5.7-square-mile municipality that straddles Hawthorne Boulevard north of Lawndale and south of Inglewood. It has a population close to 60,000, a median household income of $21,777 and 22,351 registered voters. In the last municipal election, 25% of those voters turned out. Construction in the city this year--$58.5 million through August--is more than double the 1984 rate and crime is down 4.5% from last year, according to city officials.

Unorthodox Campaign

Veteran Ainsworth is expected to easily defeat Bernadou, who lists no contributions and is running an unorthodox campaign. His platform includes a prediction that the “Great Los Angeles Earthquake” will occur precisely at 3:47 p.m. on April 19, 1987, with an intensity of 8.4 on the Richter scale.

“If I am wrong, not much will be lost, but if this prediction moves people to prepare, I don’t mind the laughter,” Bernadou said.

Hawthorne’s main arena for political combat this year is the race for the two council seats.

Two of the six candidates, challengers Richard L. Mansfield and Ginny McGinnis Lambert, have been walking door-to-door for weeks, with Mansfield saying he hopes to visit all who voted in the last municipal election. Ray Pearcy, another challenger, sent out a full-color brochure and intends to send out another mailer. Incumbents David York and Charles Bookhammer are spending money for mailers and yard signs. York said he has had 6 to 10 people walking neighborhoods for him every weekend for weeks.

Kathy Corsiglia, 38, a housewife, said she became a candidate because she was upset that city officials had not prevented a developer from building in the middle of a block where she owns a house.

‘Not Going to Buy Votes’

“I don’t think I have a chance in hell” of winning, she said. “I am not spending the money. I am not going to buy votes. If people want to vote for me, I want them to vote for me because I am an average person pushed around by the developers.”

Incumbent Bookhammer, 37, who owns an insurance agency, has said he supported the Police Department as a councilman and, in a reference to the tumultuous period a few years ago when City Council meetings were known as the “Monday night fights,” added that he had contributed stability to the City Council in his 2 1/2-year tenure.

Bookhammer and York were elected in February, 1983, to unexpired terms after a recall election removed three council members. Bookhammer lost a race for a full term two years ago, but was appointed by the council to fill out Hocker’s term after Hocker was elected mayor.

In Need of Harmony

York, 48, operations manager of Centre Properties Ltd., which manages commercial and industrial property, said he was elected to the council at a time when city government, after a tumultuous period, was in need of harmony. He said he supports planned commercial development to generate enough additional tax revenue to make the utility tax unnecessary.

York said a cooperative effort involving residents, city staff and developers is needed to work out problems in areas, such as Moneta Gardens, that are undergoing a lot of construction.

Lambert, 53, an administrative assistant at Northrop Corp. and long a critic of City Hall, said the incumbents lack fresh ideas and that the council needs her energy. She added that she opposes the 3.5% municipal utility tax, instituted by the council in 1984 to pay for additional police. In a campaign brochure, she charged that crime in the city remains high despite efforts to curb it. Bookhammer criticized Lambert for the brochure saying, “It is a very effective bulletin, but it is really pulling the wool over the voters’ eyes. Crime is coming down and we (the council) are doing what we can.”

Mansfield, 51, an operations manager with AT&T;, said his eight years of experience as a councilman in Inglewood before he moved to Hawthorne in 1978 would help the city. He also said the city suffers from overdevelopment.

“People have no place to park. Crime is up in every area. You have chaos out there in development,” he said.

Opposes Utility Tax

Pearcy, 59, co-owner of Century 21-Hawthorne Realty Inc. and a state director of the California Assn. of Realtors for nine years, stressed his experience with the Boy Scouts and in the business community as qualifications. He opposes the utility tax and said he would like to change an ordinance requiring property owners to keep storefront areas clear of trash. He believes tenants or the city should be responsible.

Pearcy emphasized positive aspects of the rapid residential development under way in Hawthorne, saying it adds to the tax base, fills a need for more housing and has “kept a lot of people working.”

Hawthorne’s system of elections is arranged so that the Nov. 5 polling need not be the end of the City Council contest. If Ainsworth is elected mayor, state elections law gives the council 30 days to appoint a successor or call for a special election within 90 days to fill her council seat. If the council fails to act, a special election will be automatic.

The possibility that the council may appoint her successor has made at least one candidate shy about attacking incumbents. Mansfield said, “I am reluctant to criticize them because I may wind up third and they may appoint me.”

In the mayoral race, Ainsworth, a tax consultant, cites as qualifications her seven-year tenure on the city council, the last two as mayor pro tem, and her membership in civic and governmental organizations. Ainsworth, 59, said she wants to eliminate the utility tax. On the issue of development, she recommends a cooperative approach and said she has been meeting with residents and developers in high-development areas hoping to find common ground.

Typical solutions to traffic congestion--light rail, park-and-ride and buses--should be pursued, she said, as well as a less-tried concept in which employees are discouraged from using their cars by high parking lot fees.

Bernadou, 64, a retired aerospace worker who lives on Social Security, has no telephone. He can be reached by phone only at midday at the senior citizens recreation center in Lennox where he eats lunch.

He is a prolific, if disappointed, correspondent with national figures.

Non-Delivery of Mail

In a letter he wrote to a board member of Northrop Corp., Bernadou wrote “NOTE: I am initiating an investigation through the Post Office on non-delivery of certified and regular mail.

“My many certified letters to national leaders have gone unanswered. My efforts to PREVENT several disasters may have been blocked by some well-meaning but overzealous secretary trying to keep out the ‘kooks.’ ” He listed the truck bombing in Beirut, the 1967 fire that killed three astronauts and forest fires as disasters he could have prevented, and concluded his letter: “An end to the nuclear arms race? Unemployment? Crime? Deficit? Education? Call me.”

He has called for a city residence for the mayor during his unorthodox campaign.

In the city clerk race, Keller, 38, a State Farm insurance agent, faces Werhan, 49, a teacher’s aide for the seventh and eighth grades in the Hawthorne elementary schools.

Keller took credit for computerizing the clerk’s office and instituting cost savings.

Absentee Clerk

Werhan has accused Keller of being an absentee clerk who runs his department through his deputy, adding that she would be a full-time clerk. Keller said that the $600-a-month salary makes the office part-time, but that he is always available when needed.

Werhan also questioned an $8,000 loan that Keller made to his campaign.

“I don’t believe it. He borrowed it from someone else. I am surprised he is spending so much money on this election. He must be worried,” she said.

Keller laughed when told of Werhan’s remark.

“That’s ridiculous. It’s comical. I have never accepted any contributions at all. I have always financed my campaigns myself. I have got canceled checks. You can come audit me.”

The amount of money the candidates have spent campaigning has varied as widely as their platforms.

In the council race, the latest campaign finance reports show Bookhammer, who has received $6,204, leading in political contributions and loans. Three others have collected more than $5,000: Lambert, with $5,480; York, $5,152, and Pearcy, $5,001. Mansfield has $1,628 and Corsiglia reported no contributions, as did mayoral candidate Bernadou.

Among the identifiable donors, real estate interests contributed or loaned the most.

Developer Batta Vuicich contributed $750, the largest outright gift received by any of the candidates, to Lambert, York and Bookhammer. He also contributed $500 to Pearcy’s campaign.

Lambert, whose husband works at Prime Realty, a firm owned by Vuicich, received an additional $300 from Vuicich’s brother Lubo and $150 from Jo C. Thompson, a Prime Realty agent. Lambert and her husband loaned her campaign $4,005.

Real estate sources contributed $3,155 to Pearcy, $850 to Bookhammer and $750 to York.

Several of the candidates appear sensitive about having their financial backers identified. Mansfield said that he told many who wanted to contribute to his campaign to wait until after Oct. 21 so their names would not appear on a campaign finance report until after the election.

“So far most of it is mine,” he said. He listed a loan from himself for $928.34, a loan for $500 from Assemblyman Curtis R. Tucker (D-Inglewood) and a contribution of $200 from Frances Latham of Gardena, a Pacific Telephone Co. manager. He estimated he will spend between $6,000 and $8,000 before the election.

Incumbents Bookhammer and York have received more than $5,700 in contributions of less than $100--the threshold for disclosing the names of donors. Many of them were from city employees giving $99, the maximum allowing anonymity, both candidates said. Bookhammer added that some told him they required confidentiality because of possible retribution if the incumbents are not reelected.

Lambert expressed contempt for the $99 donors, calling them “ninety-niners.” “Sure, they are legal, “ said Lambert who listed $75 in contributions of less than $100.

Politically Charged

As the election nears, the council chambers have become a politically charged forum. At Tuesday’s meeting, for example, the incumbents were angered when the council was asked to approve a 21-unit apartment on land zoned for nine units in the 14400 block of Cerise Avenue in the Moneta Gardens area, where development in the city is most intense.

“Why are we being asked to approve density that is higher than it is zoned for?” demanded York. “As you know, we are hearing from a lot of people and one thing we are hearing about is the density problem and here we are . . . asked to look at higher density,” he said in reference to the upcoming election.

Bookhammer said, “It is this type of zoning that has created problems We get parking problems. We get traffic problems.”

City Manager Kenneth Jue explained that the Planning Commission recommended approval because the property was in a “transitional” area--between zones of high and low density. He got nowhere.

“It is like it is a little OK and a little not OK,” commented York.

Returned to Commission

York moved that the proposed zoning change be sent back to the Planning Commission and Bookhammer seconded. The motion passed unanimously with Hocker, who has property nearby, abstaining.

“It is really political,” Ron Hoover, architect for the proposed apartment, said afterward.

Meanwhile, Hocker, with less than a month left in office, has adopted a detached view of politics in Hawthorne.

“Not having to campaign has been quite a relief,” he said at Monday’s council meeting.

“I sleep at night.”