Local Elections : Development, Fiscal Troubles Dominate Races in 2 Cities : New Majority May Emerge in ‘Hottest Election in the Valley’

It has been going on for a year now, like a marathon fencing match. Thrust, counterthrust, parry. With legal actions, ballot measures and quantities of blame and derision as their weapons, City Council and Citizens for Responsible Development have been slicing heatedly at each other’s ideas about running the city.

Now, there finally is a chance for a clear-cut winner to emerge in this fiscally troubled city. With three of five council seats up for grabs, the April 12 election could produce a new majority from the ranks of the slow-growth citizens group.

“It’s probably the hottest election in the San Gabriel Valley,” says Frank Blaszcak, one City Council candidate, despite some evidence that the campaign has yet to stir large numbers of voters.

Pounding away at the current council’s support for a controversial hotel project and its resistance to a one-year moratorium on development, the Citizens for Responsible Development (CFRD) has endorsed a three-man slate from its own ranks to oppose the incumbents. A candidate endorsed by the citizens group has also weighed in against the city treasurer, and, complicating the council election, Arthur Almaguer is running for council as an independent.

The rancorous campaign has ranged all across the San Gabriel landscape in scattershot fashion, covering everything from the response time of local ambulances to the amount of toilet paper in restrooms at San Gabriel High School.

“The City Council is basically out of control,” says challenger James Castaneda, a highway contractor. “They’re making it up as they go along.”

Though the headlong pace of development in the city in recent years has been the subject of countless confrontations at council meetings, the issue is not as clearly drawn in the election. The three incumbents--Jeanne Parrish, Edward Lara and Michael Falabrino--have sought to appropriate the slow-growth position as their own.

“To look at some of their election material, you’d think they were charter members of our group,” sniffed a skeptical Greg O’Sullivan, chairman of the citizens group.

But the incumbents point to measures adopted by the council as early as November, 1986, before the formation of Citizens for Responsible Development, placing restrictions on multi-unit apartment buildings.

“We were the first to do something to decrease the density when we saw what was happening in our city,” said Councilman Sabino Cici, a point man of sorts for the three incumbents, although he is not up for reelection.

Falabrino, an investor who has been on the council for 24 years, supports placing an annual cap on the number of residential units that could be built. But he objects to existing restrictions--a result of the one-year moratorium approved by the voters last December--on commercial development at a time when the city is facing deficits.

The city, which has lost four large businesses and a major share of its sales tax revenue in the past two years, will dip into reserves this year to cover a budget gap of $250,000, said City Administrator Robert Clute. Next year, the deficit is expected to extend to $350,000.

“They (the citizens group) have authored a moratorium that is very, very restrictive,” said Falabrino.

But the challengers backed by the citizens groups--Castaneda, John Tapp and Blaszcak--contend that their adversaries are Johnnys-come-lately to the slow-growth cause.

Playing ‘Simon Says’

“There’s a game of ‘Simon Says’ being played in the city,” said Blaszcak, a county public information officer. “It appears that we, the CFRD candidates, are Simon. Whatever we do, the City Council does.”

The citizens group contends that council-imposed development restrictions have done nothing to slow the pace of growth in the city. For example, within four months of a council-approved measure to tighten the requirements for multiunit construction in January, 1987, the city approved building applications for 180 apartment units.

“Actions speak louder than words,” O’Sullivan said.

A random check with voters this week showed only desultory interest in the campaign, which also pits incumbent treasurer Helen Achilles against the Citizens for Responsible Development-endorsed John Janosik.

Voters Unmoved

“If it doesn’t hit television or the radio, I don’t pay much attention,” said David Sanchez as he watered his lawn on El Monte Street.

“The only thing that has stirred any interest is the moratorium,” said Doug Brown, who lives on California Street. “I go along with that. I can imagine what it must feel like to spend 30 years paying for a house, then having somebody build a big three-story building next door.”

The past year in San Gabriel has seen a succession of controversies related to the growth issue, many of them argued in a series of turbulent council meetings. First, the council in April approved the development of the 11.5-acre Edwards Drive-In site as a hotel and restaurant complex, despite citizens group objections that the project would add to rush-hour congestion in the center of the city.

The project appears destined for completion, though Citizens for Responsible Development has fought it in the courts, winning a concession from the city that its impact on traffic and city services required further study.

The organization’s greatest victory was the success of its slow-growth ballot initiative last December, placing a one-year moratorium on virtually all development in the city.

The council had unanimously opposed the measure, arguing that it would make the city vulnerable to lawsuits from property owners who would effectively be deprived of the use of their land for a year. The measure passed by more than a 5-to-1 ratio in a special election that drew 28% of the voters.

The council recently responded by awarding a $90,000 contract to a Newport Beach firm to revise the city’s 17-year-old general plan, with special emphasis on economic development strategy and land use.

Attacks Gets Personal

With both sides making slow-growth statements, the campaign has tended to focus on personal attacks. For example, Citizens for Responsible Development has portrayed Falabrino and Parrish as major developers, with Falabrino owning nine buildings in and around San Gabriel and Parrish owning four apartment buildings and an office building in San Gabriel.

“That’s a lie,” responded Falabrino, who said he owns just two apartment buildings with a total of 38 units, both of them acquired before he became a council member. “I haven’t built a building in 25 years.”

Falabrino’s financial disclosure statement, however, shows that he owns or co-owns four buildings in San Gabriel and five others in Monterey Park, Arcadia and Alhambra, and that he and his wife are trustees for four others.

Ownership Defended

“Only two of the San Gabriel buildings are apartment buildings,” Falabrino said. “The trusteeships are part of my mother’s estate. Those buildings belong to my daughter and my nieces and nephews.” One building in Arcadia and one in Monterey Park are also apartment buildings, he added.

The financial disclosure statement from Parrish, a retired nurse and hospital administrator who has been on the council eight years, confirms the San Gabriel holdings described by the citizens group.

The incumbents have sought to portray the group as an irresponsible trouble-maker, sowing dissent for the political gain of its key members.

“They just picked up the newspaper, looking for an issue, and settled on growth,” said Cici, who charges that the group created “hysteria among landowners and developers” with its moratorium campaign, causing the kind of rapid development it said it sought to stop.

Cici also has charged that the political gain of its key members. Citizens for Responsible Development is behind a volatile squabble between San Gabriel Police Chief Don Tutich and 30 non-management police officers, who voted “no confidence” in the chief two months ago.

Agitation Charged

“We know how you’ve brought this city to an uproar,” Cici said of the group at a council meeting when its officers charged Tutich with ineffective leadership and antiquated management policies. “You guys have been running for election a whole year.”

Citizens for Responsible Development has strenuously denied that it prompted the departmental brouhaha.

And Lara, a retired truck driver who has been on the council 12 years, charged that the group, by challenging the city, has contributed to city budget deficits. “The special election on the moratorium--that cost us $16,000 right there,” Lara said. “We’ve had to spend a lot of money on court costs because they’ve sued us for this or that.”

At a forum two weeks ago, Council for Responsible Development-endorsed candidate Tapp, an accountant, charged that the city’s failure to assist in maintaining public tennis courts on the grounds of San Gabriel High School had placed a burden on school maintenance. His remarks touched off what has become known as the “toilet paper scandal.”

Tissue Issue Defended

“I was just trying to bring out the fact that maintenance in the school bathrooms could be improved if the school didn’t have to worry about maintaining the tennis courts,” Tapp said.

He said students and parents had complained about the high school’s failure to provide sufficient toilet paper. “One mother told me she sends toilet paper to school with her kid,” he said.

The remarks resulted in a heated attack from Cici, who charged in a widely distributed statement that Tapp was creating a “phony problem” over which the city has no control. Principal Jack B. Mount was unavailable for comment.

The fourth challenger in the City Council election, Arthur Almaguer, who describes himself as a company president and an educator, could not be reached for comment.