SOUTHBAY ELECTIONS : Development Is Key Issue in Hawthorne

For months, City Council meetings have been dominated by the development dilemma--how to moderate the impact of rapid apartment construction without scaring away builders.

And in the campaign for an open seat on the council, how to handle development has become the central issue.

To be sure, other subjects have been raised by one or another of the candidates: rent control, the integrity of campaign politics, the professionalism of city staffers, the city image, liaison between city and county law enforcement, even the fact that there will an election at all.

And new issues could pop up in the 12 long days before the April 8 election--plenty of time in the rough-and-tumble politics of Hawthorne for surprises held in reserve until the last few frantic days.

The candidates themselves are familiar faces at Hawthorne City Hall. The third- and fourth-place finishers in the November council elections are competing against each other again, and a former councilman has joined them.

The vacancy was created when council member Betty Ainsworth was elected mayor in November and resigned her council seat. The council opted to have an election rather than fill the vacancy by appointment. The winner will serve a two-year term and will be paid $250 a month.

Political observers say the race will probably go to the candidate who can pick up the most from the sizable bloc of voters who supported both incumbent councilmen in November.

Candidates this time, in alphabetical order, are:

- Larry Guyer , 50, one of three former councilmen recalled in 1982. Guyer lost a comeback attempt in the mayoral race later the same year. A quadriplegic receiving Social Security disability payments, Guyer has lived in Hawthorne 38 years.

- Ginny McGinnis Lambert, 53, a Northrop Corp. administrative assistant who has been a consistent critic of City Hall. She came in third in November council race, about 400 votes behind the two incumbents, who each got about 1,600. After the election, she argued that the City Council should appoint her to the seat that Ainsworth vacated, but the council chose instead to hold an election. Lambert has lived in the city 32 years.

- Dick Mansfield, 52, a staff manager for American Telephone and Telegraph Co. He was a councilman in Inglewood from 1971 to 1978 when he remarried, moved into his new wife’s home in Hawthorne and resigned his Inglewood post. He made an unsuccessful bid for the Hawthorne council in 1983 in the special election that followed the recall vote. Last November, he finished 41 votes behind Lambert.

Although the three candidates agree that the impact of development is the biggest issue, they differ on what should be done about it.

Real Estate Interests

Lambert’s position and campaign appear to be the most closely aligned with real estate interests, while the other candidates said development is proceeding too fast.

Lambert said she realizes that some residents do not like apartment construction, but said it reflects the demand for housing and the proximity to jobs.

“I think every property owner should have the right to do what they want with their property,” she said. Asked what, if anything, she would do to regulate growth, she replied: “I haven’t had a chance to study all these things. I hate to see municipal government (get) into our lives so we cannot decide what we do with our property.”

In general, Lambert said, the extent of the influence of developers in Hawthorne politics is “about right.” Her campaign literature prominently features an endorsement by former Mayor Guy Hocker, a real estate agent and developer.

Development Standards

Lambert said it would be premature to comment on a recently proposed package of tougher development standards for apartment heights, density, recreational space and landscaping. The proposals, recommended to the City Council last week by the Planning Commission after a six-month study, are a major element of the development debate.

“Because there are some very important changes (in the package), I could not make a snap judgment,” she said.

Whoever is elected April 8, however, will probably have to vote on the proposals.

Lambert said that the real estate interests of her husband, who has bankrolled her campaign, would not influence her position on the development standards.

Lambert’s husband, Olin, works for Batta Vuicich, one of the city’s largest and most politically active developers. Vuicich is chairman of a developers organization that paid part of the cost of mailing a letter opposing the building standards to thousands of property owners last week.

“I don’t care who has been paying for what,” Lambert said. “The most important thing is that we do what the community wants. Olin sells real estate. . . . What he does does not affect me. He does his business and I’m working for the people, and he knows that.”

Construction Limits

Guyer said that the pace of apartment development in Hawthorne is “too fast” and added that he agrees “in concept” with the construction limits proposed by the Planning Commission.

“I think they are on the right track,” he said. “I may have some differences here or there.

“The city may not have been prepared for the influx that came. Maybe it went on too long, but right now, some of the things that are being done are addressing the questions . . . like building height, added density, parking, the whole problem with the police and fire and public safety concerns, the influx it could bring to our schools.”

Mansfield said recent apartment construction in the city has “probably (been) too fast. But that does not mean that if it is done in a planned manner, that it could not continue at the same speed. Now it is chaos. It is not being controlled by the city. It is being controlled by the developers.”

‘Positive Step’

He said the Planning Commission’s proposal is “a very positive step,” but added that the commission should consider limits on the number of occupants to moderate the impact of apartment construction.

The Planning Commission proposal “shows that there has been some response to the complaints of the people who live there, and that an effort is being made toward orderly development.”

Mansfield criticized the city administration for not giving the Planning Department the importance it deserves.

“In my opinion, what we have today is not professional. That may hurt some feelings but that is the way I feel about it. . . . The chaos that we have is because we had no professional input. The developers controlled everything,” he said.

“Planning is one of the biggest issues in the city and we should elevate the director to the status of department head . . . and thereby attract the professionalism that is so desperately needed in the city today.”

Asked about the extent of developers’ political influence, Mansfield replied, “Realistically, those people who are politically active are those people who do business with the city. Not all of us like that system but that is the system we operate under today.”

Rent Control

On rent control, Lambert expressed sympathy for tenants “being hurt by slumlords.” But she said she is not in favor of rent control, calling it “the ultimate in having government control in your lives and your business.” She said that rent control would lead to “more slums” because landlords would not fix up their buildings.

Lambert said she favors strengthening the city’s Rent Mediation Board, which seeks to resolve landlord-tenant disputes but has no enforcement power.

Guyer said he also would like to give more power to the Rent Mediation Board. “I don’t feel that rent control is the way to go,” he said.

Mansfield said some form of rent control might be needed for trailer parks where owners eager to close a park for redevelopment can raise rents to force evictions and avoid costly relocation fees.

He said he wanted to study the issue of rent control in apartments before taking a position.

Campaign Conduct

Campaign conduct as an issue was raised by Lambert, who drafted “Ginny McGinnis Lambert’s Code of Fair Campaign Practices,” dared other candidates to sign it and then blasted them when they did not.

Her own flyers attacking incumbent David York during the last election were attacked by York as misleading. She said they were accurate.

In a recent flyer, Lambert criticized Mansfield for a mailer that she said was misleading because, she said, the groups listed as endorsing him either did not exist or were recently set up solely to promote his campaign.

Mansfield shrugged off her complaints. “She must think she is behind,” he said, and he criticized Lambert for running a “negative” campaign. “Personal attacks, in my opinion, have no place in political campaigns,” he said.

Guyer said campaign conduct so far was not an issue in the campaign.

“That isn’t to say that, before the end of the campaign, it won’t spring up,” he said.

“In the past, there are the so-called hit pieces that come out in the last week of the campaign. . . . I never sent out a hit piece. I never sent out a piece someone else considered a hit piece.”

Recall Election

Guyer said he believes voters will not hold against him the circumstances that led to his recall in 1982. Guyer and two other council members were recalled after they voted the year before to extend the terms of three council members, including Guyer, without an election. The action was permitted but not required by a state law aimed at scheduling municipal and school board elections on the same date.

In his campaign, Guyer has proposed that the city withdraw from its direct link with the county police and fire dispatch units, arguing that Hawthorne’s computerized police and fire data bank is more sophisticated than the county equipment and would provide better service. And he says that the city’s image needs constant monitoring.

In addition to the council race, Hawthorne voters will be asked whether they want to continue to elect the mayor directly or go back to a system in which the council members elect the mayor from among themselves.