Agendas Vary in Race for Mayor : Inglewood Candidates Focus on City’s Image

The three candidates running for mayor on Nov. 4 have widely varying agendas for promoting commercial growth, reducing crime and helping local schools, but they unanimously identify the city’s tarnished image as its No. 1 problem.

Saying that the city has an undeserved reputation as a high-crime area with rampant drug dealers, substandard housing, poor education and depressed business districts, incumbent Mayor Edward Vincent and challengers W. R. (Tony) Draper and William (Bill) Wagstaff have vowed to take steps to improve the city’s image.

As for ways to do that, agreement stops there.

Divergent Views

Vincent says economic growth will brighten the city’s image, while Draper, an Inglewood Unified School District board member, says the city should focus more on educational improvements. Wagstaff, a former Inglewood/Airport Area Chamber of Commerce president, says the city needs to work more closely with school officials and the business community.

Though the election is a nonpartisan race, party politics are playing an increasingly important role.

Six months ago the race for the mayor appeared to be an easy victory for Democrat Vincent, the first black mayor of a city where minorities make up about 80% of the population and where Democrats lead in voter registration. Vincent also has endorsements from powerful Democrats such as Los Angeles Mayor Tom Bradley and Los Angeles County Supervisor Kenneth Hahn.

But Draper and Wagstaff also are black, and the race has taken on a more competitive turn since Draper wedged a split in the Democratic camp with support from local parents groups and school district employees, and Republican Wagstaff began soliciting GOP and independent votes with help from U.S. Senate candidate Ed Zschau and the California Black Republican Council.

Overwhelmingly Democratic

In Inglewood, 32,668 of the registered voters are Democrats, 5,392 are Republicans and 3,069 are registered with other political parties or declined to state their affiliation.

If no candidate gets a majority, the two highest vote-getters will compete in a runoff on Jan. 13.

Draper, a longtime education activist, said the city could best change its image by working more closely with the school district to help alleviate classroom overcrowding and to improve educational programs. He said the city should be more receptive to paying for educational and child-care programs that might benefit the entire city.

“If we don’t have a good school system, home-buyers will steer clear of the area, and we will not be able to attract businesses because the employment pool will weaken,” Draper said.

More Leadership

Wagstaff agrees that more cooperation between the city and the school district is needed but said the city officials also needs to improve its leadership role in the community.

“People in this city have become apathetic because they stopped believing in their leaders,” Wagstaff said. “Council meetings are nearly always empty because people think their leaders are not listening to them. I would like to see government more open to input from the residents.”

Vincent maintains that he has already started to improve the city’s reputation by helping form the Police Department’s undercover narcotics task force and by improving the city’s tax base through redevelopment.

Construction in Inglewood reached an all-time high during Vincent’s tenure, largely because of redevelopment projects on La Cienega Boulevard near the San Diego Freeway, along Century Boulevard and in the downtown area, building officials said.

Improvements Cited

Vincent said redevelopment projects have already improved those areas, especially in the La Cienega and Century Boulevard redevelopment districts, which had deteriorated since jet planes started flying over the area on their way to Los Angeles International Airport.

“Large jets started flying into LAX around 1965, and consequently a lot of those neighborhoods deteriorated to the point where the apartments and homes decreased in value and things just started to slip,” Vincent said, alluding to drug and other crime problems in areas such as the Dixon-Darby/Lockhaven neighborhoods south of Century.

The redevelopment projects he has promoted are helping renew those areas, he said.

The candidates appear to be less divided on other issues such as reducing airport noise, eliminating graffiti and combating drugs and street gangs.

Part-Time Position

The mayor, who is paid $900 a month for the part-time position, serves a four-year term and votes as a regular City Council member. The city manager handles day-to-day operation of the city.

Here are the candidates’ backgrounds and some of their views:

- Draper, 43, an engineering product manager for Hughes Aircraft’s radar systems division in El Segundo, is married and has four children.

He has served 3 1/2 years on the Inglewood School Board and is a board member of the Los Angeles County School Trustees Assn.

Draper decribed himself as a “grass-roots” candidate because he is spending only about $1,000 on his campaign, and said he decided to run for mayor because he is dissatisfied with the relationship between the city and the school district.

Draper, who accused city officials of “meddling in the district’s hiring policies,” said the City Council has “turned a deaf ear on repeated requests for help in dealing with our overcrowding problems and setting up school programs for child care facilities and students with high truancy rates.”

Draper said he also would like to see the city spend more time dealing with residents’ concerns and less time dealing with commercial growth issues.

“The city has done a lot of good things with redevelopment, but the energy put into those things is at the expense of the day-to-day things that concern residents like drug sales, child care and crime,” he said.

Draper also pledged to try to get city funding for more anti-drug programs in local schools.

If elected mayor, Draper said, he would resign his school board post.

- Vincent, 52, a county probation officer and former member of the Inglewood School Board, was elected to the City Council’s District 4 seat in 1979 and elected mayor three years later.

He takes credit for helping to restore pride in the community, starting programs that have helped to reduce crime for four consecutive years and establishing community events that cater to the city’s changing ethnic makeup, such as a Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. observance and the Cinco de Mayo fiesta.

He also says his efforts to promote business have increased the city’s tax base to offset the loss of about $2 million in federal funds.

“The city lost an incredible amount of money this year, but we didn’t lay off a single person and we did not cut back services one bit,” Vincent said.

Vincent said he would like to continue the city’s building boom and improve city programs that find jobs for unemployed youths and senior citizens.

With $78,800 in campaign contributions reported for the first seven months of this year, Vincent has the race’s largest and best-funded campaign. State records show that he spent $47,035 on his campaign in that same period.

Vincent, who has lived in Inglewood for 14 years, is married with two grown daughters.

- Wagstaff, 55, a tax accountant and former planning commissioner, has lived in Inglewood for 16 years. He is divorced and has two children.

With the motto “Inglewood Needs a Renaissance,” Wagstaff said his goal is to “bring a new openness to government and get rid of the idea that the City Council is a closed body that is not willing to work with residents or other governing bodies.”

Wagstaff said he would like to set up a “summit-like meeting” with school district officials to identify common goals and work together on programs that might benefit their common constituencies.

Wagstaff said he hopes the city will continue with its redevelopment push but cautioned that officials need to spend more time and energy dealing with the concerns of homeowners and small businesses.

As a planning commissioner between 1977 and 1985, Wagstaff says, he helped make zoning changes to accommodate the La Cienega and Century Boulevard redevelopment programs.

Wagstaff said he plans to spend about $5,000 on his campaign.

The Inglewood Breakfast Club, a civic organization, and the Morningside High School Parent/Teacher/Student Assn. will hold a candidates night forum on Wednesday at 7 p.m. in the Morningside High School cafeteria.