Rancho P. V. Incumbents, Hopefuls Disagree on What’s Good for City

To incumbent Rancho Palos Verdes City Council members Doug Hinchliffe, Melvin W. Hughes and John C. McTaggart, such things as a multimillion-dollar budget to improve streets and storm drains and the massive effort to stop or slow the Portuguese Bend landslide add up to success.

“The city is healthy and getting healthier,” said Hinchliffe, adding that if the roads are not fixed, they will “simply deteriorate” and calling the slide a “cancer growing on Rancho Palos Verdes” that is being successfully slowed. “Had we done nothing, it would be far worse,” he said.

But to challengers Alan J. Carlan and Kathleen A. Snell, these same things stand for extravagance and risk.

Carlan contends that there is no need for many of the street and drain repair projects and wants an end to the 5% utility users tax that helps pay for them.

Development Not Wanted

“We formed the city because we did not want development . . . did not want to raise taxes,” said Carlan. “They’re doing everything the opposite of why the city was formed.”

Snell argues that the landslide is much wider than the city realizes and the work under way could trigger other slides for which the city would be liable.

The slide project “is experimental and the risk is too great,” she said.

The three incumbents, all former Planning Commission members, were first elected to the council in 1983 and are seeking second terms. The challengers have never sought office before and concede they are underdogs.

“You need $10,000 to get an incumbent out of office,” said Snell, who plans to spend less than $500. Both she and Carlan believe they have a message that will appeal to the city’s 27,000 voters and it could get them elected.

No Political Base

Carlan argues that his disadvantages, which include minimal community involvement and no political base, “can be easily overcome by the facts.”

Council members, elected at large for four years, are unsalaried but have the option of receiving $150 a month for council-related expenses or itemizing expenses, which could be more. The five current council members accept the $150.

The election is not shaping up as a big-money contest. Carlan and the incumbents say they will spend no more than $4,000. Mailings to voters will account for the largest chunk. Coffees, telephoning and precinct walking are the other major campaign tactics.

“There’s not a lot furor,” said McTaggart.

While they are running independent campaigns, the incumbents are supporting each other, and they cite many of the same points as examples of city growth and improvement during their four years in office:

The $2-million state-financed project to halt or stop the Portuguese Bend landslide, together with recent settlement of an Abalone Cove landslide lawsuit which, among other things, will result in as much as $10 million being spent to build a drainage system and perhaps buttress the slide at the shoreline. It would be financed through redevelopment bonds which would be repaid through property tax increments that increase as land is bought and sold and values goes up.

Citywide storm drain and road improvements over the next five years that will include major thoroughfares as well as residential streets.

Hiring in August, 1986, of Dennis McDuffie as city manager, which incumbents say has resulted in better service to the public and improved employee morale and efficiency.

Recent legislation--culminating years of effort by low- and no-property tax cities to get more money--which, starting in three years, will give the city a larger share of the county property tax.

The prospects that Marineland, whose abrupt closure led to emotional and bitter confrontations between lovers of the aquatic park and its new owners, will become a world-class executive conference center that could give the city, which currently has an operating budget of $9.1 million, another million dollars a year in revenue.

The two challengers are not impressed with the course the council has set.

Tax Issue

Carlan, 57, and manager of a space program at TRW, is hitting at financial and maintenance issues, calling for repeal of the 5% utility tax, which is estimated to bring in $1.6 million this year. He claims that this year’s $7.4-million capital improvement budget is excessive, saying many of the repair projects--including one on Hawthorne Boulevard near his home--are unnecessary. If such work is done, he says, it should be paid for by the city’s new property tax money, not by utility users.

Carlan, a community resident for 21 years, also contends that the landslide program is unwise because it may not work and could make the city liable if other slides are triggered.

“I’m worried about the future,” said Carlan. “It’s hunky-dory now” in the Portuguese Bend area.

Snell, 41, and the single parent of an 8-year-old daughter, has lived in the community for 21 years--the last 14 in Portuguese Bend. She lists herself on the ballot as being in “police administration.” She declined to discuss who she works for or what she does, citing security reasons. She said she is “not working during the campaign.”

Spurred by Development

She said the Marineland fracas, and what she considers excessive development in the city--including the once-controversial Golden Cove condominium project--prompted her to run for office. She does advocate affordable housing for senior citizens.

“The most frightening is the council’s idea that they are going to put in a minimum of 450 new homes in the ancient slide area,” she said, referring to what could happen if a building moratorium on 1,100 acres surrounding the active landslides were lifted. City officials said last year that if the moratorium were lifted, no construction ever would be permitted in what is now the active slide areas.

Snell argues that the city is taking too great a liability risk in tackling the landslide and contends that property owners could wind up paying the bill for the work in Abalone Cove through property liens if expected tax increments were insufficient to finance it.

McTaggart, 57 and head of water- and air-pollution control programs for Hughes Aircraft Co., said the high point of his term came when Gov. Deukmejian signed legislation granting the $2 million for the slide program.

Lobbying Effort

“I lobbied in Sacramento for three weeks,” said the 25-year resident of the community, who said his involvement in civic affairs predates incorporation 14 years ago.

Hinchliffe, 48, said he is proudest of his role in hiring McDuffie who, he said, “is a good delegator, a good communicator with the staff, and has a sense of service.”

A community resident for 20 years, Hinchliffe is vice president of a real estate management and development company in Brentwood.

Hughes, 47 and currently mayor, cites the landslide project and what he calls an improved financial situation. Crediting himself and McTaggart for lobbying work in Sacramento that “got the money,” he said the city devised a plan to combat the slide “that has done the job.” At the same time, he acknowledged that some in the area are unhappy with what the city has done.

On the financial issue, he said that while utility taxes are always politically risky, “it was the right thing to do.”

Hughes has lived in Rancho Palos Verdes since 1965 and, like McTaggart, has been involved in the city “from the start.”

On the key issues, it is as if the incumbents are speaking a different language than the challengers.

Some of the incumbents contend that Carlan is simply uninformed about city affairs. They say Snell’s views on the landslide may stem from the fact that she lives there and, as Hughes put it, “she does not want things to change where she lives” even if “others fall into the sea.” Hughes and Hinchliffe said that people who own land that is not sliding have a legitimate right to build a house on their property.

For her part, Snell, whose home is on stable land, said she owns four acres and “would become a millionaire” if they were developed. “What I am talking about is our excellent opportunity to protect the wilderness. With the ancient slide, we have a great opportunity to protect this area for everyone’s use.”

On the contention that the city does not know enough about the 31-year-old Portuguese Bend slide to fight it without great risk, McTaggart said: “This slide is the most studied slide in the world. It’s a bunch of bull that we don’t know about it.”

No Liability Issue

Said Hughes: “The law is clear. There is no greater liability in trying to stop the slide than in not trying.”

All of the incumbents spoke out strongly on behalf of the street and drain repair programs, Hinchliffe saying there is “ample evidence” that the road work is legitimate. The incumbents also defend the utility users tax as a needed revenue source, but one that could be repealed if enough money comes from the Marineland development and the increased property tax down the line.

The incumbents also rebut Snell’s and Carlan’s alarm over the possibility of residents having to foot the bill for the Abalone Cove work. Hinchliffe said normal real estate turnover in the area will generate enough tax increments to pay off the $10 million in Abalone Cove slide abatement bonds, along with an additional $5 million in bonds that could be spent on the Portuguese Bend slide under terms of the settlement.

Carlan and Snell are critical of the city’s relationship with Charles Abbott & Associates, the firm that is contracted to provide engineering and public works services and oversees the slide abatement program. Both contend that the Abbott company has the potential to generate work--and fees--for itself although both say they have no evidence of any improprieties. Snell said that the public works director should work directly for the city.

Incumbents, as well as some city staff members, disagree. Hughes said contracting actually is less expensive because the city pays only for specific tasks.

City Manager McDuffie, who said Abbott has 20 to 25 employees who at various times perform city business under a $1.1-million contract, said that the city gets “better service at lower cost” than it would if it had its own public works employees. He said the work is monitored by his office and auditors go over all job contracts. “He (Abbott) doesn’t have a free hand,” he said.