Voters Go With Familiar Faces for 3 City Councils : Hermosa Beach : Measure to Preserve Open Space Gets OK

Voters reelected incumbents in three of the four South Bay cities that had council elections Tuesday, but in Hermosa Beach a longtime City Council critic ousted an incumbent seeking a second term.

Hermosa Beach voters also agreed to tax themselves to help pay for preserving open space, but tax measures that would pay for paramedics in Hawthorne and ease a budget crunch in El Segundo were rejected.

Here are the details:

Voters in Hermosa Beach overwhelmingly directed the city to buy the Santa Fe Railway right of way to preserve as open space and approved another measure to tax themselves to help pay for it. Three other ballot measures also were passed.

Longtime civic activist Roger Creighton and Planning Commissioner Chuck Sheldon were elected to the City Council, as incumbent Tony DeBellis lost his bid for a second term. The other incumbent whose term was up, Mayor John Cioffi, did not seek reelection.

DeBellis’ ouster, combined with the replacement of three incumbents in the 1985 election, gives the city an entirely new council in just two years.

Creighton, who has sued the city several times on various issues, received the most votes, 1,675. Many City Hall workers and political insiders consider Creighton an annoyance, but voters apparently felt differently.

Sheldon pulled in 1,556 votes, DeBellis was third with 1,474 and newcomer Michael Neiman made a respectable showing with 1,132 votes.

Sheldon and Creighton spent much of the campaign criticizing one another and taking credit for the various propositions on the ballot. “If Chuck would have ignored me,” Creighton said, “I probably would have stayed ignored the whole campaign.”

DeBellis, who was one of the three necessary council votes that put the right-of-way purchase initiative on the ballot and who proposed the utility-users tax increase to help raise the money, said he had more to do with the ballot propositions than either Creighton or Sheldon.

DeBellis attributed his loss in part to a lack of support by leaders of the Open Space People’s Action Committee--a group of residents fighting for the right-of-way preservation--and to what he called negative campaigning by Creighton.

Referring to Creighton’s election, DeBellis said: “I guess there’s a vacancy for a watchdog.”

Voter turnout was about 28%, estimated City Clerk Kathleen Midstokke, who was reelected without opposition. She attributed the high turnout (20% is average) to Proposition J, the right-of-way initiative, which was approved by 89.6% of the voters in the densely populated, 1.3-square-mile city.

The tax measure, Proposition K, will raise the utility-users tax to 10% from 6%--at an estimated cost of $6 to $7 a month for the average customer.

Because City Council members wanted to improve the chances of getting the tax measure approved, they put the increase on the ballot as a general tax, which required only majority approval instead of a two-thirds vote needed to pass a special tax. Proposition K was approved by only 53.1% of the voters. Revenue generated by general taxes cannot be earmarked for a specific purpose and can be used at the council’s discretion.

Current City Council members, as well as Creighton and Sheldon, have promised to allocate the estimated $666,000 that the tax is expected to raise to purchase the right of way.

By an 87.8% majority, voters approved Proposition L to allocate oil drilling revenues to buy, improve or maintain the right of way and other open space properties. It could not be determined how much money the measure will generate.

Also passed, by an 82.2% majority, was Proposition M to require voter approval before building heights for new office and commercial developments can exceed current levels.

Maximum heights allowed are 35 feet for office buildings, 30 feet for buildings in C-1 zones, 35 feet in C-2 zones and 45 feet in C-3 zones.

The City Council can still give property owners with “a unique hardship” a variance to the height limits and can change the boundaries of the zones without voter approval.

The fifth initiative, Proposition N, was approved by 68.2% of the voters and establishes a business license tax for movie theaters. They will be taxed $100 for their first $20,000 of gross receipts and $1.50 for each additional $1,000. The increase will generate about $5,500 a year and will add less than 1 cent to each movie ticket, according to a ballot argument.

In the city treasurer’s race, former Councilman Gary Brutsch, a self-employed management consultant, won with 1,311 votes. Journalism student and part-time clerk Elaine Doerfling got 1,078, and escrow company owner Sandra Hughes placed third with 652.

City Treasurer Norma Goldbach did not seek reelection.

Although she was unopposed for a second four-year term as city clerk, Midstokke’s name was on the ballot and she received 2,359 votes.

Ranch Palos Verdes

Three incumbent City Council members were reelected to second terms, but sizable votes for two challengers may reflect some discontent with the direction the city is taking, two of the winners said.

Councilman John C. McTaggart came in first with 3,435 votes, followed by Councilman Doug Hinchliffe, who had 3,074, and Mayor Melvin W. Hughes, who polled 2,871. According to final unofficial returns, only 687 votes separated Hughes from challenger Alan J. Carlan, who charged in the campaign that the city is spending money on unnecessary road and drain repairs and called for an end to the utility users tax that helps pay for them.

Kathleen A. Snell received 281 votes less than Carlan. A Portuguese Bend resident, she spoke out against a city project to stop a landslide in the area and against possible development there.

“I’m surprised that Carlan and Snell got as many votes as they did,” said Hinchliffe, adding that “people who are not happy with the city supported the two newcomers.” He said the two “struck a chord” and “we did not rebut them well.”

McTaggart agreed that the vote for the challengers was one of “discontent.”

“We ought to analyze that dissent and deal with it,” he said.

Carlan, who was trying for public office for the first time, called his showing “a message to the council to let them know that not everyone out there is happy.” He said he was “uplifted” by the support he got, calling it a credible showing.

Despite the votes for Carlan and Snell, the incumbents said their reelection is an endorsement of the present council and what they see as its success in taming the landslide, launching overdue street and storm drain improvements, and improving city finances.

The vote “indicates a fair degree of satisfaction,” Hughes said. “There were no burning issues.” He said he does not view the Carlan-Snell showing as a protest vote.

Rolling Hills Estates

In a bitter election marked by charges of “Chicago-type politics” and irregularities at some polling places, three longtime City Council incumbents--Peter M. Weber, Hugh H. Muller and Warren A. Schwarzmann--were leading in final unofficial returns.

But the outcome may not be known until early next week because ballots that include votes for an official write-in candidate must be counted by hand.

However, candidates on both sides of the contest--in which two incumbents and the write-in candidate accused the other three candidates of being too close to act as independent council members--said they believe that the incumbents will be the eventual victors.

Muller, who is mayor, and Schwarzmann said it is unlikely that write-in candidate William H. Ailor III, a city planning commissioner whom they supported, will receive enough votes to change the outcome. Weber agreed.

Weber led the field with 746 votes, followed by Muller with 551 and Schwarzmann with 547.

Trailing in the balloting were Dan E. Butcher, who had 355 votes, and his son-in-law, Carl Woodrow Robertson II, who had 338. Both are allies of Weber.

While conceding that winning as a write-in is “very difficult,” Ailor said: “I think I’m sort of still in the race.” He based his optimism on the fact that the Los Angeles County registrar of voters has not counted 764 ballots in which a write-in vote, presumably for Ailor, was made.

City Manager Ray Taylor said “anything is possible” given the number of write-in ballots, but he said their validity must be checked. Each potentially contains votes for three candidates.

Weber, who was accused by opponents of being too close to Butcher and Robertson and of being in a business venture with one of them, said he feels sad about what he termed the “Chicago-type politics” of the campaign. In turn, Schwarzmann said Weber has not done much on the council.

Weber and Butcher claim that at some polling places Ailor’s name was written inside booklets in voting booths. Taylor said the city received such a complaint about a booth in one of the five polling places and the name was removed. Ailor said he was not aware of this, calling it “totally unethical.”

El Segundo

El Segundo City Council members will meet in a special session next week to determine what actions to take in the wake of the overwhelming defeat of a 4% citywide utility-users tax.

Of 2,263 residents who cast a ballot on the measure Tuesday, 81.5% voted against it.

At least one councilman, Keith Schuldt, predicted that the proposition’s defeat at the polls Tuesday means tough times ahead for the city.

“It means we are really going to have to make some cuts--drastic cuts,” Schuldt said Wednesday.

With the exception of Mayor Jack Siadek, council members favored the proposition, saying it was needed to balance the city’s budget this year and in future years. City officials predicted that the tax would raise $3.5 million annually.

But the proposition ran into opposition from the El Segundo Residents Assn. and the Group United for Residential Rights (GURR). In their ballot argument against the proposal, the two groups contended that residents were being asked to “plug the massive tax leaks caused by the high-rise office buildings” that have sprung up on El Segundo’s east side in recent years.

“Residents don’t believe they are the cause of the city’s deficits,” Nestor Synadinos, co-chairman of GURR, said Wednesday. “They think the new construction is. Residents aren’t going to pay for the office buildings.”

City officials agree that development has strained city services. But they say a dramatic decline in the amount of sales tax revenues the city collects from the Chevron U.S.A. refinery is the main reason for the city’s financial woes.

City Manager Art Jones said Wednesday that he wasn’t “horribly surprised” by the election’s outcome.

“I think the primary problem is the desire of the residents, or at least those who have been active in this issue, to have business and industry pay the cost because of their perception that the problem is caused by business,” Jones said.

Compiled from reports by Barbara Baird, Gerald Faris, Karen Roebuck and Tim Waters.