H. P. Redevelopment Leads Election Issues

In a city that was once labeled a suburban “disaster area,” municipal officials are pursuing a dramatic cure--wholesale redevelopment.

It will be the main issue on April 8, when three veteran City Council members are up for reelection.

“Our achievements are there for everyone to see,” said one of the incumbents, Herbert A. Hennes Jr., referring to rows of old houses, apartment buildings and shops in the city that have been knocked down and replaced by $80 million worth of condominiums, shopping malls and industries. Another $70 million in condominiums, retail stores and other projects are also under construction, city officials said.

“If people haven’t liked what we’ve done, they can vote against us. But the city is doing better now than it’s done for years and years,” said Hennes, 61, a public relations official for Gannett Outdoor Co. Inc. of Southern California and a council member since 1970.

The three incumbents--Hennes, Mayor Jim Roberts, 50, and William P. Cunningham, 47, are running as a team in a city that the Rand Corp. said in a 1982 study was one of 14 suburban “disaster areas” in the country. In the study, Rand said the 14 areas were beset by complex social and economic problems that included crime, low incomes and deteriorating housing.

41 Years of Experience

The incumbents are seeking four-year terms that pay a salary of $400 a month, with an extra $25 a month for the city’s mayor, who is appointed by the council. The incumbents have 41 years of council experience among them. They also have $22,000 in campaign contributions.

The opponents include three real estate agents--all from the same firm--who have loaned themselves a total of $960. Running as the “team for sensible redevelopment” are Alan Kartsman, 30, Louie Aragon, 23, and Don B. Porter, 53. All are associated with Kartsman’s real estate firm in Huntington Park.

A fourth challenger, Raul Perez, is a former real estate agent who is now a loan officer at Liberty Savings & Loan in Huntington Park. Perez said he has not raised any money yet.

The challengers have a different view of the city’s redevelopment program. Redevelopment, they say, has destroyed hundreds of homes that could have been rehabilitated. Redevelopment also has displaced hundreds of families, where, in a city with an annual median household income of $15,000, few can afford new condominiums, the challengers say.

The incumbents “are literally taking blocks and blocks of homes,” said Kartsman, who is president of Kartsman Realty. “They are strip-mining the town and abusing the eminent-domain law and they tell you it’s for the benefit of the community.”

40% of City Land Targeted

Of the city’s three square miles, 40% has been classified as redevelopment project areas, and by 1988, 15% of the city’s land will have been condemned for redevelopment, said James Funk, executive director of the Redevelopment Agency.

To date, 288 acres have been condemned, 67% of which is residential land, Funk said. To make way for redevelopment, members of 623 households have been relocated from 549 buildings that did not meet local building, health or fire codes, Funk said. Of those substandard buildings, 55 were rehabilitated and the remaining 494 were torn down, he said.

Each tenant family that was moved for redevelopment received an average of $4,000 to relocate, Funk said. And every homeowner who lost a house to redevelopment has been paid fair market value plus an additional $12,000 to $15,000 in relocation benefits, he said.

The challengers, however, said many of the new condominiums are empty, despite newspaper advertisements that proclaim bank liquidation sales and reduced prices.

347 Condominiums

“They’re building a product that there’s little demand for,” said Porter, a part-time real estate agent and a full-time mechanical engineer for Sargent Industries of Huntington Park. Porter, who ran unsuccessfully for the council in 1984, himself had to move that year after his home was condemned for redevelopment.

In the city’s redevelopment areas, developers have built 347 two- and three-bedroom town house condominiums. The condos now sell for between $92,900 and $112,000, but in the past were sold for as little as $87,500 and as much as $124,500, Funk said. Of the 347 condos, 213 have been sold, 49 are in escrow and 85 are unsold, Funk said.

“Certainly the town homes have not moved as fast as everybody thought,” said Roberts, who is co-owner of Roberts Metal Manufacturing Co. of Huntington Park. Roberts, however, said the condos are selling at the rate of one per week and are affordable housing in California. He added that the units are only part of a redevelopment effort that he said has brought about “the rebirth of the community.”

“Most of the homes that were torn down are 50 or 60 years old and need to be torn down. Redevelopment has turned this town around,” said Cunningham, funeral director for the Klinker-Cunningham-Guerra Mortuary in Huntington Park and a council member since 1977.

Other redevelopment projects under construction include 106 additional condominiums, to be built by 1987, and 633 senior citizen apartments, to be completed by 1988. Redevelopment also has brought 1 million square feet of industrial development into the city and 2,500 new jobs, Funk said.

Roberts, a council member since 1970, said the election offers a “choice of dealing with successful people who have increased the financial value of the city . . . and the other individuals who couldn’t find their way out of the rain.”

‘Like the Marcos Regime’

The challengers have little regard for the incumbents’ experience, saying that, after years in office, the incumbents no longer listen to residents.

“It’s going to be like the Marcos regime. The people will have to overthrow them if they stay in office any longer,” said Kartsman, who ran unsuccessfully for City Council in 1982 and city treasurer in 1984.

Kartsman was appointed by the incumbent City Council to the city’s Parks and Recreation Commission in 1978, but in 1980 was removed from office by the council. While council members said Kartsman was removed because he was telling city employees what to do, Kartsman said he was removed because he wouldn’t follow the council’s orders.

If elected to the council, Kartsman, Aragon and Porter would have conflicts of interest because they are real estate agents, the incumbents say. Council members also sit as the city’s Redevelopment Agency.

“There is a risk of inside knowledge that is frightening,” Roberts said.

The challengers disagree.

Plans to Avoid Conflicts

Porter said that, if elected, he would sell real estate for another firm and would not sell land in Huntington Park. Kartsman said he does not own any land in Huntington Park, but if elected would continue to sell low-cost housing in the city. Aragon, vice president of Kartsman’s real estate firm, said if elected, he would not allow his firm to get involved in the city’s redevelopment programs.

Two of the challengers, Aragon and Perez, are Latino, and both complain that the council of five white males cannot communicate with Latinos, who comprise 84% of the city’s population of 52,153. Aragon and Perez also charged that the incumbents are not sensitive to the needs of Latinos, many of whom have lost their homes to redevelopment.

“It’s kind of hard to provide leadership and motivation through an interpreter,” said Perez, who served as a city parks and recreation commissioner from 1975 to 1977 but was not reappointed by the council.

While the incumbent council members said Perez was not reappointed because he missed too many meetings, Perez said he missed five meetings in three years and was not reappointed because he planned to run for council. He ran unsuccessfully for the council in 1978, 1980 and 1984.

Aragon said he also is running to provide a Latino voice on the council.

“I don’t feel we (Latinos) are being represented at all,” he said.

Hennes countered: “I don’t care what the surname or what the complexion is. . . . Those are not qualifications. We have never made ethnic backgrounds an issue in any of our social or building programs.”