Development, Spending Dominate Campaigns in 2 Cities : Local Elections : Azusa Candidates Bicker on Everything From A to Z

As two City Council candidates argued vehemently over who had wasted more city money, and a third candidate offered intermittent gibes, Councilman Bruce Latta asked Mayor Eugene Moses if the council meeting could return to more pertinent matters.

“Could we please get back to city business,” asked Latta, Moses’ only opponent in the April 12 election for mayor.

“This is city business,” responded Moses. “Do you see anything here that isn’t city business?”

After a month of relative calm, matters had regained their usual stridency at Monday night’s council meeting. Charges of misconduct have been so common this election season that the city clerk called a meeting last month to plead for fair play in the races for mayor and two council seats.

Decorum returned at a candidates forum Tuesday night. Bitter adversaries the night before, Councilman James Cook and challenger Harry Stemrich joined others in saying the council desperately needs unity after years of infighting and backbiting.

On a council often rocked by monumental debates over minor issues, the need for unity seems to be the sole area of agreement.

But disagreement surfaces the minute council members start to talk about how to achieve unity.

For Moses and his backers, cohesiveness could come if incumbents Cook and Lucio D. Cruz are unseated. Cook and Cruz are generally allied with Latta to form the council majority. For Latta and his supporters, unity could be achieved if Moses is ousted from a post he has held for three two-year terms. The five other council candidates believe their selection would tip power away from both sides by providing a more independent vote.

“It could all change, or it could all stay the same,” said Latta, who echoed Moses in saying the election offers an opportunity to upgrade the city’s image. “We’ve become somewhat of a joke.”

Old Pledge

Moses, 54, a retired businessman, repeatedly asked voters at the forum to elect candidates who would not oppose his ideas. Moses said Latta, Cruz and Cook have stymied his efforts to refurbish the blighted downtown area and fulfill an old campaign pledge to make Azusa more competitive with surrounding cities.

“If you give me a council to work with, you’ll see a lot more get done,” Moses told voters.

Moses, Stemrich and candidate Tony Naranjo are running for the council on a slate backed by Azusans for a Better Community, a group that supports prudent city spending and controlled growth and claims a membership of 200. In running together, the three seek to bring a new majority into power.

“I can work with anyone,” Moses said, “but they (Stemrich and Naranjo) are my preference.”

Conflict between Moses and the majority came to a head in 1986, when Latta, Cruz and Cook voted for an ordinance that greatly curtailed the mayor’s powers and barred him from using the employee refrigerator at City Hall. In January, Latta persuaded the council to rescind the ban, saying it caused friction at City Hall and gave Moses a campaign issue.

Moses complained that he usually faces three votes against most of his proposals.

“I’m fighting for what I believe in and what’s best for the city of Azusa,” he said. “Give me somebody I can work with.”

By contrast, Latta said unity starts with the selection of the right mayor. Latta, who lost the 1984 mayor’s race to Moses by a 2-to-1 margin, was reelected to another four-year council term in 1986 and will keep that seat if he is defeated for the mayoral job.

Latta, 37, an operations manager with the Los Angeles County Fair, has pledged to use town meetings to get residents more involved in city government.

“That’s the kind of leadership that this city needs,” he said. “Getting people together; working with them.”

Latta has proposed a program under which members of the city staff, elected officials and citizens groups would meet to study issues such as development proposals, the future of Azusa Greens golf course and a proposed moratorium on the construction of apartments and condominiums.

‘We Can Do Better’

The town meetings, Latta said, would bring government closer to the people and allow politicians to hear citizen concerns on important issues.

Latta is backed by United We Stand, a group seeking changes in city government and unhappy with Moses as mayor. The group was formed in January, according to Garry Whipple, the group’s campaign coordinator.

“You look to the point man, and we are not pleased with the way the administration is going,” he said. “We are not getting the leadership the city needs from Mayor Moses. We think we can do better.”

Whipple said the group decided to endorse Latta after screening several candidates and deciding he had the best chance to oust Moses.

The group has not endorsed candidates for the two council seats. But Whipple said members think Councilmen Cook and Cruz and candidate Mike Falletta are the most qualified.

Heated Battle

In the council race, a heated battle has developed between incumbent Cook and Stemrich, a 57-year-old construction photographer. The two sparred angrily at Monday’s council meeting about several of Cook’s city-funded lobbying trips, with Stemrich accusing Cook of excessive expenditures and frivolous travel.

Cook, 35, accused Stemrich of running a campaign of innuendoes and said a report from city staff validates his lobbying efforts. An outside audit released last week concluded that Cook had spent $24,536 on travel and expenses since 1984, more than any other council member. A separate staff report said Cook may have saved the city up to $2.94 million.

The audit and the staff report were authorized by the council after complaints raised by Stemrich last year. Naranjo and Stemrich challenged assertions made in Cook’s campaign statement that he saved the city hundreds of thousands of dollars lobbying before Congress and making presentations before bond companies and financial institutions on behalf of city redevelopment projects.

Part of the dispute stems from a trip Cook made to New York in 1986 to lobby the Moody Investors Service about a redevelopment bond rating. According to the staff report, Cook’s presentations allowed the city to secure bond rates one-half percent lower than in years past, for a potential savings of $1.26 million.

Market Fluctuations

Stemrich disputed the conclusions of the staff report, saying the savings on the bond issue were based only on market fluctuations and had nothing to do with Cook.

A member of the city staff or the mayor should have made the lobbying trips to Washington and New York, Stemrich said.

Stemrich also charged Cook with working on a project for the county while he was being paid by the city to lobby in Washington.

Stemrich said that Cook, who had been a ground-based paramedic for the county Fire Department, spent most of his time in Washington successfully seeking funds for a helicopter from the Department of the Interior. After the department got the helicopter, Cook was reassigned to work as an airborne paramedic, Stemrich said.

Cook responded that he was acting only as a courier for the Fire Department and that he lacked the necessary clout to get the new assignment.

“I’m just a grunt fireman,” he said. “I can’t tell people where I want to work.”

Making a charge of his own, Cook said that the audit of council members’ travel expenses requested by Stemrich was a waste of city money because the outside auditors found no improprieties.

‘Witch Hunt’

A draft of the $16,000 audit by the accounting firm Conrad and Associates was released to all the candidates last week. It concluded that no council members abused travel expenses from July, 1983, through June, 1987, the time period covered by the audit.

Cook said Stemrich’s complaints led to a fruitless “witch hunt.”

Stemrich questioned the findings and said that if elected, he would push for a more thorough audit.

After the heated battle between Stemrich and Cook at Monday’s council meeting, unity became the theme on Tuesday, with both incumbents and challengers promising to work together smoothly.

Challenger Todd Baker said his status as a political newcomer would help him inject fresh ideas and work with all factions on the council.

Baker, a 23-year-old businessman, said council members need to set aside personal politics and work together for the city’s good.

“There’s a lot of people on stage saying, ‘Let’s bring unity to city government,’ ” he said. “One of the best ways we can get unity of the council is to (force council members) to take their eyes off themselves and put them on the city.”

Independent Voter

Another challenger, 53-year-old Realtor Conrad Bituin, said he is is not allied with any political faction and would be free to cast independent votes.

Similarly, challenger Mike Falletta urged voters to choose candidates who would place the city’s needs above their political ambitions. He said it was time Azusa politicians consider “what’s right over who’s right’

Falletta, 37, a planning commissioner and employee of Southern California Gas Co., said he would bring planning expertise to the council, and has said he enjoys a good working relationship with city staff and officials. Falletta made an unsuccessful bid for a council seat in 1986.

Naranjo, a businessman, said the city can achieve unity by electing a council that can work together and that it is time for a change.

“I think that the citizens of Azusa will look at the record of the current City Council and make the appropriate changes,” he said.

Naranjo, 28, said that he would work to improve fiscal responsibility and promote independent leadership.

Fiscal Responsibility

Incumbent Cruz cited the need for fiscal responsibility. Cruz, a 64-year-old retired county employee, said his knowledge of financial matters had helped keep the city solvent.

“I don’t go for all these contracts being given out to people without bid,” said Cruz, who has spoken out against a staff proposal to award a reservoir repair project without the normal bidding process.

Cruz, who has served three four-year terms and is the senior member of the council, said he could maintain the leadership that has brought new vitality--in the form of the Price Club and other redevelopment projects--to the city.

Cruz is opposed to the large number of apartments and condominiums being built in the city. Last week, he persuaded the council to begin considering a citywide building moratorium until the council and staff study the problem.

In addition to the council and mayoral races, one anti-development measure will appear on the ballot.

Voters are being asked to approve current zoning, which restricts the Azusa Greens golf course to recreational uses.

Special Election

Six months ago, voters rejected two initiatives in a special election. One would have rezoned the golf course to permit development, and the other would have authorized a $26-million bond issue so that the city could buy the property and maintain it as a golf course.

Owner Johnny E. Johnson wants to sell or develop the 111-acre property and has said he considers $26 million a fair price.

Cook is the only council candidate who backs development of the golf course.

“We can get the best bang for our money now,” he said. “If we wait 10 years, and there is nothing there but weeds, we may lose out and get a bad project at higher density.”