Growth Proposal Dominates Races

Doug Peake, a political unknown until he entered the race for City Council on a pledge to stop condominium construction, has made himself and his no-growth crusade the dominant issue in the Nov. 4 election.

Rival candidate Barbara Messina said Peake’s proposed initiative, which would ban construction of condominiums and apartments in all residential areas, is “strictly a publicity ploy” but one that has succeeded in shaping the council campaign.

“He’s pulling a con job, making the people believe that he is the savior of the community,” Messina said.

Actually, she said, Peake, a teacher who has lived in Alhambra five years, is a relative newcomer, has no record of civic activity and is appealing to those who resent the city’s influx of Asians.

“It’s a racial issue,” Messina said. “People circulating the initiative are biased against Asians.”

Asians have built and occupied many of the new condos and apartments and their percentage of the the city’s population has jumped from 12% to 25% since 1980, but Peake said there is no racial motive behind the initiative campaign.

“I don’t see it as racist,” Peake said. “Overpopulation has nothing to do with ethnicity.”

Changing the Issue

Councilman Michael Blanco, who is backing Peake while running for reelection himself in another council district, said Messina is wrong to suggest racism.

“She’s just bringing it up to change the issue,” he said.

The initiative that Peake sponsored is not on the Nov. 4 ballot and will not reach voters until the city clerk verifies that 5,798 registered voters have signed petitions. Peake and his group, Residents Opposing Condos, filed petitions with the clerk on Tuesday.

The proposal would rezone all residential areas of the city for single-family homes exclusively, relegating any new condos or apartment buildings to commercial or industrial areas.

Peake said some multiple-family housing might be built in commercial areas but he doubts that it would be economically feasible to build on industrial land.

Messina and Peake are competing for the 2nd District City Council seat along with James T. Richetts, a sales executive, who says his own views toward residential development are more moderate than those of his opponents.

Middle of the Road

Richetts said that Messina wants “growth at any expense,” while Peake is relying on “fear tactics” to promote a no-growth policy that would “bring the city to a standstill.”

His own position, Richetts said, is to demand quality development through tougher enforcement of present zoning laws and by raising building standards where necessary. He called Peake’s proposed initiative “atrocious.”

Alhambra voters will elect three council members on Tuesday. The second district seat is currently held by Messina’s husband, Michael, who decided against seeking reelection.

Council members Mary Louise Bunker in the 1st District and Blanco in the 5th District are campaigning for their second four-year terms.

Citywide Elections

Bunker is opposed by Ralph Gilliam, a member of the Planning Commission, and Stephen T. Hearn, a member of the Civil Service Commission. Blanco has three opponents: Sonia E. McIntosh, an administrative assistant in education; Joe Harrison, a businessman, and David S. Smith, who is retired.

Although candidates are nominated by district, they are elected citywide.

The city ballot includes four Charter amendments and a proposition to repeal the city utility tax.

One Charter amendment would allow urgency ordinances to take effect immediately, eliminating a five-day waiting period. Another would permit Alhambra to pool resources with other cities to obtain liability insurance. The other amendments would repeal antiquated language in the Charter and shorten Civil Service Commission terms from four years to one.

Utility-Tax Repeal

City Proposition A would repeal a 5% tax on bills for telephone, electricity, gas, water and cable television service enacted in 1983.

City Manager Kevin Murphy said the repeal would deprive the city of $2.7 million a year, or 15% of its general-fund revenue.

In a report to the City Council last August, Murphy said that if the tax is repealed, he will recommend that the city close City Hall at 1 p.m. Tuesday through Friday, close a branch library and reduce hours at the main library, shut down a fire station and eliminate nine positions in the Police Department, disbanding the narcotics enforcement team and ending the school crossing guard program.

Murphy’s recommendations were based on an 8.8% cut in police and fire budgets and 17.2% cut in other departments. In all, 55 of the city’s 356 employees could lose their jobs.

Dismisses Dire Predictions

Mark Lockman, president of All We Can Afford, the group that circulated petitions to put the utility-tax repeal on the ballot, compared Murphy’s warning to statements made by officials in many cities in 1978 when Proposition 13 cut tax revenue. Many of the predictions that vital services would be lost never materialized, he said.

Lockman noted that more than 4,000 of the 28,585 registered voters signed petitions against the utility tax.

“The people overwhelmingly support its repeal,” he said.

However, Helen Wysong, chairman of Alhambrans for Fair Taxation, which is campaigning against the repeal, said the tax finances services that residents support.

She said the tax, which amounts to about $70 a year for the average homeowner, is “a small price to pay” to avoid cutbacks in city services.

Shift in Focus

Barbara Messina said the debate over city development policies has overshadowed the proposed utility-tax repeal, which many people thought would be a key issue.

She said incumbents Blanco and Bunker “have taken the heat off themselves” for enacting the tax by shifting the election focus.

And what is worse from her viewpoint, she said, is that she is being painted as a champion of condos and apartments, though she does not see herself in that role. “I’m for controlled, quality, sensible growth,” she said.

Messina said she supports the revised general plan, scheduled for adoption by the City Council next month, which would reduce the number of new residential units that could be built, cutting the projected population from 120,000 to 93,000 when all lots have been developed to the maximum.

Unfair Rezoning

The state Department of Finance currently estimates Alhambra’s population at 71,304, an increase of more than 6,600 in six years.

Messina said that much of the city has been zoned for multifamily development for decades and that it would be unfair to rezone all residential areas, as Peake proposes, exclusively for single-family homes.

“His idea is to turn Alhambra into San Marino,” she said. “Well, you can’t. We can’t be an R-1 (single-family residential) city.”

In addition, she said, Peake’s proposal would declare existing apartments and condominiums in residential zones to be “non-conforming,” making them uninsurable because they could not be rebuilt if destroyed by fire. Owners would be unable to obtain loans on the property, she said.

Ambiguous Requirement

In addition, the proposed initiative says that existing multiple residential structures would be permitted “so long as they comply” with fire, building and other codes. Some have interpreted this to mean that owners would be required to remodel old buildings to meet current codes, but Peake said that this is not the intention.

Peake and Blanco both insisted that insurance could be obtained on non-comforming buildings, though Blanco conceded that owners might have to shop to find it.

Peake said that the initiative would be a brake on the City Council, which he said has allowed developers to harm the character of the city.

Only five houses have been built in Alhambra in the past five years, but builders have constructed 200 multifamily housing projects, creating 1,360 condominium and apartment units, according to the city.

Creating Urban Problems

Peake said the growing population density has led to traffic congestion, crowded schools and more work for police.

“When you pack people into an area, you’re going to have problems,” he said.

“I represent the interests of people who own single-family homes and are interested in maintaining that atmosphere,” he declared.

Messina said it is unfair to blame all the city’s woes on condo construction, citing the failure to complete the Long Beach Freeway through the city as one major problem, along with the proliferation of small stores, such as a project near her house that will replace four businesses with 23.

The aggressive campaigns being waged by Messina and Peake have overshadowed the low-key efforts of the third candidate, Richetts, who said the City Council should work with developers and residents to achieve higher development standards.

‘Passing the Buck’

He said the council has “a habit of passing the buck” instead of making hard decisions.

Richetts, 51, is vice president in charge of sales for Don Richetts Co., which supplies linear measuring tools and gauges to manufacturers. He served 10 years on the city Redevelopment Agency board and is a member of the Alhambra Long-Range Financial Planning Committee.

Peake, 39, is a teacher employed by the El Monte Union High School District to guide and motivate students identified as potential dropouts.

Messina, 46, lists herself on the ballot as a homemaker and citizen advocate. She led a “People Against Obscenity” picketing campaign for five years against a bookstore that specialized in sexual materials and she has been active in numerous youth and community organizations. She served as her husband’s council field representative for three years.

Visions of the Future

In the 1st District, Bunker is opposed by two city officials who are critical of her record in office and offer differing visions of the city’s future.

Gilliam, 60, a member of the Planning Commission for seven years, said the drive to stop all multiple residential development is ill-advised.

“What do you do with homes that were built in 1902 or 1915?” he asked. Land values are too high to make it economically feasible to tear down and replace old houses with single-family homes in neighborhoods that already have been developed with condominiums and apartments, he said.

Gilliam said the proposed new general plan reduces potential housing density but still allows room for growth.

Campaign Platform

Gilliam’s platform calls for developing a city paramedic service, working for extension of the Long Beach Freeway to ease traffic congestion and creation of more housing for senior citizens.

Gilliam, who is a retired manager for a parcel delivery service, has lived in Alhambra 28 years.

Hearn, 33, a member of the Alhambra Board of Appeals and Civil Service Commission, advocates a slowdown in residential construction, which he said should be imposed with a quota system rather than the sweeping provisions of Peake’s anti-condo initiative.

Hearn said limits on new multiple-family housing construction could lead to a shortage of rental units, necessitating some form of rent control to keep rents from soaring.

Hearn, who is on disability leave from the classified advertising department of The Times, advocates more housing for elderly and low-income people, more involvement of minorities in city affairs and reestablishment of a park-and-ride program for commuters.

Assails Opponents

He said that Gilliam has taken a “build, build, build attitude” on the Planning Commission and that Bunker has not been receptive to constituents and has violated campaign promises of fiscal restraint.

He said Bunker is taking credit for a downtown redevelopment project she criticized when she ran four years ago.

Bunker responded by saying that any credit that has been taken was deserved because the new council overcame the litigation and anger that had arisen over downtown redevelopment and guided the project to completion.

Bunker, 62, works at a hospital as a health educator and is director of a savings and loan company.

Fiscal Accomplishments

She said the council has succeeded in putting the city in a solid financial position.

She said she voted against the last city budget to protest expansion of city programs instead of phasing out the utility tax. However, if voters repeal the tax, she said, there will be a “real shock to the financial structure of the city.”

Hearn said that the council should not have adopted the tax without submitting it to voters first and she is glad that it is on the ballot now. He said he believes that residents should retain it to support city services.

Gilliam said he is not taking a position on the tax, but will follow the will of voters.

In Favor of Repeal

All of the candidates challenging Blanco favor repeal of the utility tax, while Blanco has proposed that it be eliminated for residents but not for businesses.

Blanco, 37, an attorney, said his achievements on the council include strengthening police crime prevention programs, opposing residential overdevelopment and encouraging commercial growth.

Smith, 62, who is retired as an administrative assistant for an aerospace company, said that the city has neglected the downtown business district and poured money into lavish projects, such as the golf course clubhouse.

McIntosh, who declined to give her age, said the city has “too many frilly programs not geared to the public at large” and has allowed special interests to take over.

She said her two biggest qualifications for office are that she is neither a real estate agent nor a lawyer. Her platform calls for saving money by firing the city’s 11 highest-paid administrators, keeping only the city clerk. She says that she frequently has been a victim of harassment by the city.

Harrison, a businessman, did not respond to requests for informations about his campaign.