Pre-Election Venom : Charges Fly at Freewheeling Lawndale City Council Meeting

With little more than a month to go before the election, the Lawndale City Council campaign is heating up fast, with candidates trading charges at a rancorous 4 1/2-hour council meeting last week.

All five incumbent council members and seven challengers are competing in an April 12 race for the office of mayor and three council seats.

The freewheeling council meeting Thursday night was punctuated by numerous claims and counter-claims by challengers, incumbents and their political allies.

The highlight of the night was a well-orchestrated confrontation between Mayor Sarann Kruse and Planning Commissioner Gary McDonald over a letter from the owners of a local business who said they had been harassed by McDonald.

Kruse read aloud the letter from Robert L. Young and Jerri Young, owners of Minuteman Press, who said that McDonald accosted them for loading boxes into a vehicle parked outside their store and threatened council action against them. They said that as a result of McDonald’s behavior they plan to relocate outside Lawndale. No specific infraction was cited by either the Youngs or McDonald.

The ensuing heated debate split the council 3 to 2, with Councilmen Harold E. Hofmann, Dan McKenzie and Larry Rudolph backing McDonald. Councilman Terry W. Birdsall sided with Kruse.

McDonald is not running for office, but he is a political ally of Hofmann, McKenzie and Rudolph, who are.

McDonald has come under fire because he admitted he committed plagiarism in a candidate’s statement he wrote for Hofmann for the April ballot. Ironically, McDonald copied a 1984 campaign statement written by Kruse, his adversary at Thursday’s meeting.

The debate drama was complete with Greek choruses, consisting of one group of residents applauding McDonald from one side of the council chambers while a contingent across the room offered loud support for Kruse.

Hofmann said that Kruse’s attack on McDonald amounted to political favoritism on behalf of “the mayor’s friends.”

Rudolph, who is running against Kruse for mayor, praised McDonald’s accomplishments and asked rhetorically: “Who is in favor of the people and who is looking out for other interests?”

Favoritism Is Denied

Kruse denied that favoritism was involved in bringing the Youngs’ complaint to the council. “The real issue is the performance of a city representative,” she said.

Kruse had told reporters she intended to ask that McDonald be taken off the Planning Commission. “People who display this type of behavior should not be allowed to continue representing the city,” she said in a handwritten note attached to a copy of the Youngs’ letter, which she provided The Times. “I intend to ask for his removal as a commissioner.”

But under fire from Hofmann, McKenzie and Rudolph, she said Thursday night that her intent was not to ask for McDonald’s removal at the meeting but to seek council support to draft a code of ethics for city officials.

Councilman Birdsall sided with Kruse on her questioning of McDonald’s conduct, saying that “ever since I have been on the council I have had problems with Mr. Gary McDonald.”

Birdsall said his dissatisfaction with McDonald goes back to when McDonald “looked over my back yard fence” and filed a complaint with the city over what McDonald said was an illegal patio full of “junk.” The patio was legal and the “junk” was antique items which Birdsall collects, the councilman said angrily.

The councilman added that McDonald’s claim was published in a local paper, which noted that he was out of town and unavailable for comment. That was an invitation for potential burglars, he said.

McDonald’s supporters accused Kruse of “crucifying” him for bringing to light incidents of mismanagement at City Hall. They praised his energy and zeal in uncovering serious irregularities in the city’s Planning Department. “What this city needs is more watchdogs like Gary McDonald,” one resident said.

McDonald labeled the Youngs’ letter “a lie,” and he said that the Youngs are supporters of Kruse and that their company prints her campaign material.

A flurry of other claims were made at Thursday’s meeting, including the following:

Planning Commissioner Carol Norman, a council candidate, said that she believes members of the council may have committed violations of the Brown Act by conducting city business privately. State law prohibits state and local officials from conducting public business in private.

“This violation has been going on in Lawndale for almost two years now, making council meetings and commission meetings practically unnecessary. It is a blatant subversion of the American system of government,” she said.

Phone Calls Questioned

Norman, in an interview after the meeting, said that Hofmann, McKenzie and Rudolph may have violated the Brown Act by making city decisions in a series of telephone calls about city matters.

An irate McKenzie said that if Norman can prove Brown Act violations she should file a formal complaint. “If she can’t prove it, I want her off the commission,” he said.

Business analyst Nancy J. Marthens, a candidate for mayor, accused the council of “political persecution” because the council put on its agenda a request for information on legal costs of defending lawsuits brought by Marthens and others opposing city plans for a $5-million remodeling of the Civic Center.

City Atty. David J. Aleshire said that so far the legal costs of the city’s defense of the suits is about $25,000.

Marthens noted that the council did not ask for a report on costs incurred in pressing a suit in which Lawndale and five other cities and municipal agencies seek to recover their losses in speculative investments handled by E. F. Hutton and First Investment Securities.

The city of Lawndale lost about $1.68 million in the investments, and critics of the City Council say it should be held responsible for mismanagement of the funds.

Altogether, six cities and municipal agencies are seeking at least $8.4 million in compensatory damages and $16 million in punitive damages from the two firms and six individual brokers who handled the investments.

In addition to Kruse, Rudolph and Marthens, aerospace production scheduler Ronald V. Maxwell is a candidate for the two-year mayor’s term.

There are five candidates running for two council seats with four-year terms. They are Hofmann, Birdsall, Norman, paralegal Ralph C. Williams and office manager Virginia Rhodes. Candidates for a two-year council term are McKenzie, flight engineer Herman Weinstein and homemaker Tina Zarro.