Blight, Crime Key Issues in L.B. Race for Wilson’s Seat

With the resignation and death of 16-year Councilman James H. Wilson, 10 candidates--including three of the central area’s best-known residents--have been drawn into a special 6th District race for City Council.

Wilson, who was convicted on 21 fraud counts before his May 16 resignation and sudden death from a heart attack in June, had faced only one serious election challenge since 1970.

But a long line of candidates--from the local NAACP president to an Olympic track medalist to a Cambodian immigrant businessman--will be on the Aug. 26 ballot, seeking the $12,600-a-year seat.

As a result, the 6th District is already alive with fund-raisers and endorsement interviews, and with aggressive maneuvering by candidates trying to gain early backing from voters who traditionally turn out in small numbers.

Winner-Take-All Election

Candidates are aware of how few votes may be sufficient to win, especially this year with 10 in the race and a winner-take-all special election. Some say the winner may need only 600 to 900 votes to take a seat on the City Council.

There are 46,000 residents in the district, which stretches from Walnut Avenue on the east through the central city and into the industrial West Side. But it has just 10,840 registered voters, and only 2,403 of those turned out in a 1984 Wilson landslide.

“The 6th District has been dead politically, but now it’s really coming to life,” said candidate Dezebee Tyrone Miles, who received 181 votes against Wilson two years ago.

Prized by most candidates are those voters Wilson credited with consistently returning him to office--middle-aged and elderly residents, pioneers of a black community that has quadrupled in size since 1960.

Array of Special Problems

They have emerged as the most active members of a district that, according to census figures, is the city’s youngest, poorest, least educated and most transient. In 1983, nearly one-third of all district residents received some form of public assistance, and city officials say the district’s Southeast Asian and Latino immigrant populations have increased since then. The district had about equal numbers of blacks, whites and Latinos in 1980, but reapportionment in 1982 increased the percentage of racial minorities.

Many of those voters who supported Wilson are members of two institutions that are probably the central city’s most powerful, the NAACP and the church.

Frank L. Berry, 43, president of the local NAACP chapter for eight years and a longtime ally of Wilson, said he has the endorsements of several members of the 26-person NAACP board, although that organization as policy does not endorse candidates.

But Clarence Smith, 55, another NAACP board member, is backed by the organization’s vice president, Lillie Mae Wesley. Smith also claims the endorsement of the United Ministerial Alliance, an organization with representatives from most black churches in the central city.

Berry, however, said that some ministers have assured him of their support.

Criticizes Leadership

John B. Rambo, 41, a third candidate who has been highly visible in community affairs, is not seeking NAACP support, nor does he care much for the kind of slow-footed leadership he says that organization has provided locally.

“If I had sat around waiting for the NAACP to approve (of his community projects), I’d probably still be waiting,” said Rambo, a bronze medalist in the Olympic high jump in 1964 who has organized successful youth sports and education programs.

Rambo, the only candidate to hire a professional campaign consultant, joins Berry and Smith and nearly every other candidate in saying that 6th District leadership has been ineffective and the district forgotten by City Hall.

Most candidates say crime is the most pressing problem in the district, which had more rape, murder and assault than any other in 1985.

An assortment of other problems, many common to poor communities nationwide, also blight the area, they say. Drugs are hawked openly, gangs operate with near impunity, graffiti is commonplace, jobs are few, and too much housing is old and deteriorating.

“Nobody gives a damn about the 6th District,” said candidate Nil S. Hul, a 1975 immigrant, grocery store owner and past president of the Long Beach-based Cambodian Assn. of America.

“The 6th District does not get its fair share,” Hul said. “You can go to the 6th District and you can buy drugs almost anywhere. You go to Belmont Shore and you see walking policemen. Do you see walking policemen in 6th District? No. . . . We get ripped off.”

Rambo said: “We’ve got a tremendous drug problem. We’ve got 9- and 10-year-olds selling crack (cooked cocaine).”

Career Opportunities

City-arranged jobs with career opportunities may be part of the answer, he said. “You have to have sincere benefits at the end of the rainbow or else don’t do it,” he said.

Most candidates say solutions to such a serious drug problem are more police, preventive youth education programs and imagination. But many candidate-proposed solutions require the strong support of a community that has not enthusiastically welcomed some city-sponsored programs such as anti-crime Neighborhood Watch.

“I think Wilson and his colleagues, Clarence Smith and Frank Berry, have not provided the instruction or the motivation to get involved. Their leadership is stagnant and consequently the community has become stagnant,” said Hudena James, a free-lance law clerk and tax consultant, who ran for the council in the 4th District in 1984.

Berry allows that the community needs to be better organized to effectively respond to problems, but he said the NAACP has consistently addressed pressing concerns. “We have 14 standing committees gathering information, doing studies and making information available to the general community. Jim Wilson and I have been on the front line.”

Specifically, Berry said, the NAACP has for more than a year been preparing a program that, with the approval of parents, would make non-parent adults responsible for youngsters 24 hours a day. Participating adults might be retired people with free time or paid guardians, he said. The plan is now before the national NAACP for approval, he said.

Berry, a planning and budget administrator at Todd Shipyards in San Pedro, insists that Rambo, on the other hand, has specialized in sports programs and has shown little interest in the larger community.

Rambo, who has declared himself and Berry front-runners in the race, said that as a community relations specialist for General Telephone for 17 years and as a private citizen he has developed a variety of new programs that have chipped away at problems.

Started a Summer School

In 1983, when budget cuts eliminated summer school locally, Rambo rented schoolrooms and started his own summer school that helped 100 youngsters, he said. As GTE’s representative, he is now directing a reading tutorial program and has developed an anti-drug effort that brings celebrities into schools, he said. Privately, Rambo led a drive to crack down on prostitution, has coached youth sports teams, and has worked to get lights installed at Poly High School’s baseball field and a scoreboard for its football field.

Smith, who worked with Rambo in getting the Poly scoreboard, coached Rambo in softball when he was a youngster. “John’s been around a long time and he’s made great contributions to youth sports activities,” he said. But Smith said he has been around and active much longer.

A city employee since 1950, Smith has run the Recreation Department’s Central Facilities Center in the 6th District for seven years. In 1978, he started the Afro-American Youth Service Foundation, which stresses cultural heritage, and he remains its president. The group has just completed 10 programs for local cable television, he said.

Smith also was co-chairman of the unsuccessful 1984 Proposition S initiative to elect school board members by district rather than citywide. If elected, he said he will retire and work full time as a councilman.

With his early community support, Smith said, “Just my endorsements alone put me ahead. I don’t know who (Berry and Rambo) have who are the rocks of the community.”

In addition to Smith, Rambo and Berry, 6th District candidates are:

- Ron Barnes, 41, a claims assistant at a state Employment Department office until he went on disability leave 10 months ago. Barnes, who now works as night manager at Cecil’s Place, a central area nightclub, received 112 votes in a 1984 loss to Wilson. But he said he has spent the last two years “making people know me. A lot of young people approach me and say they’re going to vote for me.” Barnes is area president of a youth football conference and a Little League coach.

- Emma Calhoun Conley, 60, has recently retired from a 35-year career as a teacher, primarily in the elementary grades. A district resident for 32 years, she said she has been active in numerous civic, church and Democratic Party organizations. She is being supported by her family and neighbors on blocks near her home, she said. Her top priority is gaining day-and-night emergency services for youth and senior citizens, she said.

- Hul, 53, a member of the Public Safety Advisory Commission and a participant in the city’s Year 2000 strategic planning process, says he’s running for council to get his district its share of city services. A businessman and a lieutenant colonel in the Cambodian Army before fleeing his homeland 11 years ago, Hul is a county employment consultant as well as a grocer.

- James, 32, is a law school graduate who does research work for law firms and prepares tax returns. He founded the Black Law Society at California State University, Long Beach, in 1978 and wants the City Council to condemn as public nuisances dwellings used in the sale of drugs. “There are more rock houses in the 6th District than churches,” he said. A similar plan had been proposed by Wilson and is being analyzed by the city staff.

- Miles, 32, a medical clerk at the local Veterans Administration Hospital for several years, now arranges endorsements and books appearances for professional athletes. He said poverty is not the key problem of the inner city. “Where I live I watch thousands and thousands of dollars being spent on drugs, so there is money. But people should be taught what to do with the money they have. People are basically uneducated,” Miles said.

- Mineo Miyagishima, 45, a West Side engineer who has worked at Rockwell International and is now a private engineering consultant, said that as a councilman he would attempt to more closely link local education with business opportunities of the Pacific Rim. The industrial West Side will continue to prosper, and there is no reason 6th District youngsters should not be trained to take jobs in emerging industries. A graduate of Poly High School, Miyagishima said he is counting on old acquaintances to help during the campaign.

- Wendell W. Whisenton, 55, worked his way up to electrician during 23 years as a city employee. He is now owner and operator of two local cocktail lounges. A West Side resident, he helped organize a youth football conference and headed the board of directors of the Westside Neighborhood Center, which provided food and counseling until it lost its federal funding. He says the city must provide substantial job training and opportunities, because young people who make quick money selling drugs will simply laugh at $3.35-an-hour summer jobs offered by the city.