'New Blood' Gains Easy Victory in Pasadena Race

By ASHLEY DUNN

March 12, 1987 12 AM PT

Times Staff Writer

PASADENA —

William M. Paparian and Kathryn Nack swept two incumbents off the Board of Directors with unexpected ease Tuesday, crediting their victories to a desire for more openness in city government.

“I have questioned many of the policies and practices of the city and I will continue to do so,” said Paparian, 37, who won a surprisingly lopsided victory over incumbent Jo Heckman, 73.

Nack, 62, who narrowly avoided a runoff with incumbent William L. Cathey, 39, also attributed her victory to voters wanting “new blood” on the board.

In the two other district races, incumbent John C. Crowley, 67, won nearly 92% of the vote in trouncing Maurice Simpson, and incumbent Rick Cole, 33, won 77% in defeating Billie Williams, 57.

Third Term for Crowley

Crowley, whose opponent ran a nearly nonexistent campaign, said his victory was not as easy as it seemed because “you always have to assume your opponent will come out of his corner and into the ring.”

In the race for District 1, which covers northwest Pasadena, Crowley was elected to his third term with 1,420 votes to Simpson’s 128.

Cole, one of the board’s outspoken advocates for retaining the current nature of the city’s neighborhoods, called his election to a second four-year term “exhilarating.”

“It’s one thing to do well as a challenger, but when you get a lot more votes four years later it means you’ve brought a lot of people around to supporting you,” he said.

In the race for District 2, which covers north-central Pasadena, Cole received 1,063 votes to Williams’ 308.

The election drew one of the lower voter turnouts in recent memory, said City Clerk Pamela Swift.

She said only 22% of the registered voters in the four districts, or about 7,600, voted.

Even in the hotly contested District 4 campaign between Paparian and Heckman, only 1,949 voted.

The focus of the campaign had been on that race and the one pitting Nack against Cathey and Nina Cash.

Paparian, a Pasadena attorney, waged an aggressive and often bitter campaign for the seat in District 4, which covers the northeastern part of the city. He received 1,181 votes, Heckman got 606 and David Rodger Headrick got 162.

Paparian, who repeatedly attacked the board in his campaign for what he called secrecy and arrogance, said his victory sent a message that voters want a change in the way City Hall is run.

“I’m not part of the old-boys network,” Paparian said. “I never have been and I never will be.”

He specifically questioned a secret vote by the board in December appointing Cathey to fill former board member William Bogaard’s seat and a Super Bowl ticket controversy in which board members were allowed to buy and distribute 100 tickets each to the Jan. 25 game.

“It was apparent in the last year that there were elements in City Hall that had become arrogant and contemptuous of the people they were supposed to serve,” Paparian said. “I think people have responded to my message of change.”

Heckman was on the defensive during most of the forums before the election, saying that she and other members of the board had made some mistakes but had moved to correct them.

She refrained from attacking Paparian and instead emphasized her 12 years of experience on the board.

Heckman blamed her defeat partly on the low turnout, saying that after three terms in office many people assumed that she would win and did not vote.

Complacency, Low Turnout

“Everyone was more complacent,” she said. “I kept hearing, ‘You’re going to win.’ Well, that’s never fair to assume.

“It was such a low turnout that anyone who wins it has a rather hollow victory because so few people are making the decision.”

But Heckman charged that a major reason for her defeat was what she called Paparian’s “dirty” tactics.

Paparian had attacked her with what she said were unsubstantiated charges about her possible conflict of interest as a real estate agent and a city official and her use of political power to get street and lighting improvements in her neighborhood.

“He started crucifying me a year ago,” she said. “I should have been a little more offensive, but I was taught early on that two wrongs don’t make a right. At least I can live with my conscience after this.

“I’m sorry it wasn’t a clean campaign, but mine was and I’ll go down smiling.”

‘Out of Touch’

Paparian countered that it was Heckman’s fault that she lost.

“She was out of touch with people and we knew it,” he said, adding that his complaints about Heckman were backed with facts.

Paparian added that voters were not only voting against Heckman but also for his platform emphasizing a more open and responsive board.

“I think people were responding to my message of change, that I was going to listen to them and work hard for them,” he said.

Heckman is seen by many as a conservative, business-oriented board member.

Paparian said he expects to bring a more liberal outlook to the board.

“I graduated from high school during the Tet Offensive and I came home from the Marine Corps during Watergate,” he said. “A lot of what I do on the board will be a reflection of the generation I am part of.”

But Paparian added, “I’m going into this hoping I can be an independent. I don’t want to be pigeonholed on an issue.”

In the District 6 contest, many had predicted a close race between Nack and Cathey, who have been involved in city government for years. Cash finished a distant third.

Nack received 1,372 votes, Cathey got 1,043 and Cash received 318. The district covers the southwest part of the city.

When the District 6 seat became vacant because of the resignation of Bogaard, a popular crusader for preservation of neighborhoods, Nack and Cathey applied to be appointed.

In a secret vote, the board first tied in choosing between Nack and Cathey. On a second secret vote, Cathey won.

Nack and Cathey said they had expected to run neck-and-neck and to face each other in a runoff if neither received more than 50% of the vote.

The first returns from the precincts put Nack ahead with slightly less than 50% of the vote, but by the end of the night her total had risen to 50.2%, giving her clear title to the seat.

Cash received 11% and was clearly outgunned, having raised about $3,000 compared to the nearly $40,000 each raised by Nack and Cathey.

Nack, who focused her campaign on years of experience as a Board of Education member and former planning commissioner, attributed her victory to her broad base of support from her time on the school board and a desire by voters for a change in City Hall.

Cathey, she said, suffered from being too closely tied to Bogaard and may have lost support because of the way he was appointed.

“There are many who felt there had been an effort by the board to place someone who would continue the policies of Bill Bogaard,” she said. “The whole incident of how he was appointed also had a bad aura.”

She added that while Cathey had nothing to do with how he was appointed, he may have suffered the political consequences.

Nack, director of finance for the Los Angeles engineering firm of Nack & Sunderland, said she believes she was perceived by voters as someone outside of the nitty-gritty politics of City Hall and that perception helped her to victory.

“People think City Hall has got to change,” she said.

Cathey, a lawyer with the Los Angeles firm of Munger, Tolles & Olsen, blamed his loss, in part, on the low voter turnout.

“A low turnout was beneficial to Katie because there was a school board election at the same time and a disproportionate number of those voters would have supported her,” he said. “We got killed by the turnout.”

Cathey also said he may have suffered from publicity about the secret vote, even though he had nothing to do with it.

“I don’t know if it resulted in people confusing me with that issue,” he said.

Cathey had positioned himself in the campaign as a strong advocate for the city’s neighborhoods. Nack took a middle-of-the-road approach, saying, “While I feel just as strongly that the neighborhoods must be preserved, I also know there can’t be just one issue. The breadth of issues is far broader.”

She said she has been seen as having a “conservative-to-middle” outlook in politics during her time on the school board.

She said she has no strong issues to take up as a board member but instead plans on being a strong “detail” person.

“I don’t come in with a bag of tricks,” she said. “What is needed is good solid attention to the details.

“I’m not flamboyant and I’m not charismatic. I think I’m seen as a stabilizer.”

Local Elections TUESDAY RESULTS

(Inc.) designates incumbent.

Pasadena

Primary

A candidate winning 50% of the vote in a district is elected outright and indicated by bold type when returns are final.

BOARD OF DIRECTORS DISTRICT 1

10 of 10 precincts FINAL

Vote % John Crowley (Inc.) 1,420 91.7 Maurice Simpson 128 8.3