Seven Compete for Two Council Seats in Bellflower

Mobile home rent stabilization and redevelopment have emerged as key issues in April’s City Council election, which has seven candidates vying for two seats.

Mayor Mike Brassard, who is seeking his second term, and challengers Ivan G. Spangler and Randy Bomgaars support redevelopment--saying it will draw more business to Bellflower--but all are opposed to the mobile home rent stabilization measure.

Candidates James Earle Christo, Ron Hallett, Ray O’Neal and Councilman Joseph E. Cvetko are in favor of the mobile home measure, saying that limits on rent increases must be imposed on several of the city’s 45 mobile home parks.

However, the four have different views on redevelopment. Hallett and Christo, a former mayor, say they oppose it; former Councilman O’Neal, who once opposed redevelopment, now calls it “a dead issue” and said there is no reason to discuss it. And Cvetko, who is seeking his second term, said that “if the residents want redevelopment, I will go along with what the people want.”

Redevelopment has been an emotional topic since 1982, when a ballot measure that would have established a redevelopment agency was overwhelmingly defeated. At that time, residents feared losing their homes under the city’s eminent domain powers, and city officials were divided into anti- and pro-redevelopment factions.

The issue lay dormant until last December when Brassard surprised city officials with a proposal to put a similar measure on the April ballot. The council later voted to study the plan and tabled the issue indefinitely.

A coalition of mobile home owners from more than 20 of the city’s parks is backing the mobile home rent stabilization measure. If passed, the ordinance would limit yearly rent increases to 75% of the rise in the consumer price index or 7% of the existing rent, whichever is lower.

Since August, members of the Bellflower Mobile Home Action Committee have attended council meetings to protest rent increases and deteriorating conditions at the mobile home parks. After months of discussion with residents who criticized the proposed ordinance as too lenient, the council voted to put the city-drafted measure on the ballot.

Hallett Supports Measure

Hallett, 34, a welding instructor at Cerritos College, said that although the measure is weak, he is supporting it because “it brings the issue before the public and points out that there is a problem,” at the parks. O’Neal and Cvetko, 61, a retired mailman, also support the measure.

As chairman of the residents’ committee, Christo is leading the support for mobile home rent stabilization.

“If they didn’t have me as their spokesman, they never would have gotten to first base with this,” Christo said, referring to the committee, which is composed mainly of elderly residents.

Christo, an 80-year-old owner of a tuxedo shop who was swept into office on an anti-redevelopment slate in 1982 along with O’Neal, is also leading the opposition against redevelopment, although there are no current plans to put redevelopment on the June or November ballots.

“The clock has turned back to 1982,” he said. “I’m getting my old campaign flyers out so I can use them again.”

Brassard, 51, a Bellflower real estate investor, supported the anti-redevelopment movement in 1982, but he is now one of the most vocal supporters of redevelopment.

“I am for upgrading the business districts,” Brassard said. “To this end I have proposed that the voters be asked to approve the formation of a redevelopment project.”

Spangler, 76, a property manager who served on the Planning Commission for eight years, says he supports establishing a redevelopment agency, but would like to see “one that has limitations that protect homeowners’ and business owners’ rights.”

He said redevelopment areas should be restricted to commercial zones along the city’s major streets and should not include residential areas.

Spangler opposes mobile home rent stabilization, saying he doesn’t favor “any kind of government control.”

‘Rent Control Not the Answer’

“Those people need help, but rent control is not the answer,” he said, adding that he could not offer any alternatives.

Bomgaars, 37, a sixth-grade teacher in the Bellflower Unified School District, said Bellflower needs redevelopment to keep up with surrounding cities such as Paramount, Cerritos and Downey that rely heavily on redevelopment to boost sales tax revenue.

“We are a city that has been standing on the steps of the train station as the train of progress moves through the cities around us,” said Bomgaars, who is making his first run for City Council. “There is no reason why we can’t be attracting major businesses to our city.”

On mobile home rent stabilization, Bomgaars says he sees any restrictions on property or business owners as “a threat to free enterprise.”

Warns of Its Spreading

“If rent control takes a hold here (at the mobile home parks), where do we stop it?” he said. “I feel for the residents who are being gouged, but I am sure there is some other answer.”

Bomgaars said he didn’t have any specific plans to help mobile home residents who face steep rent increases, but suggested that residents write letters to their local newspapers.

Although other candidates have centered their platforms on either redevelopment or mobile home rent control, O’Neal, 50, an industrial engineer at Northrop, said he sees curbing city spending as the major election issue.

“When I was on the council two years ago, we had over $7 million in reserves, and now I understand there is less than $4 million,” said O’Neal, who served on the council between 1982 and 1986.

“About $300,000 was lost in those bond issues,” he said, referring to money that the city lost last fall in a speculative securities deal made by a broker for E. F. Hutton, now named Shearson Lehman Hutton. “When I was a councilman we never lost a penny.”

City records show that in 1982, city reserves totaled $6.2 million; the current reserve totals $3.8 million.

But Councilmen Brassard and Cvetko attributed the reserve decrease to the purchase of property along Oak Street for future development.

“Yes, we have less cash,” Brassard said. But “I think the value of our money is the same or better today, although the cash in the bank is different.”

Brassard Raises Most

So far, Brassard has raised the most in campaign contributions with $3,480, according to campaign statements filed with the city clerk. Contributors include Councilman Ken Cleveland, who contributed $100; Rosewood Mobile Home Park, which contributed $250, and Fritz That’s It, a topless bar in Bellflower, which contributed $300. Brassard has spent $3,207.

Spangler has raised $2,639 from, among others, Councilman William Pendleton, who gave $150; the Rosewood Mobile Home Park, which contributed $250, and Fritz That’s It, which gave $300.

O’Neal received $1,198 in contributions, including a $1,000 loan from his wife, Donna, and has spent $591.

Cvetko raised $233 in contributions and spent $858.

Christo, Bomgaars and Hallett did not raise any contributions or spend any money, records show.

Council members are elected to four-year terms and receive a monthly stipend of $480.

Voters will also decide whether or not to raise the business license tax from $25 to $75 a year and raise the tax on motel and hotel rooms from 6% to 9%.