Local Elections : Race for 2 Council Seats, Treasurer : Senior Housing, Crime Among Issues in Gardena

By ADRIANNE GOODMAN

April 1, 1988 12 AM PT

Times Staff Writer

In his bid to become Gardena’s first black city councilman, Ollie B. Hadley is running on the issue that Gardena should be divided into councilmanic districts for fairer representation on the City Council.

Although his councilmanic district proposal has received a cool reception from council members, Hadley and other residents of the city’s mostly black Hollypark section say the north section of the city is under-represented on the council and have kept the idea at the forefront of Hadley’s second try for a council seat.

Hadley, a management consultant and 11-year Gardena resident, and Eldore (Bud) Nelson, a retired aircraft inspector who has lived in Gardena for 37 years, are challenging incumbent Councilmen James W. Cragin and Paul Tsukahara for council seats. The April 12 election’s major issues are senior citizen housing, graffiti cleanup, crime control and citywide commercial development.

Mayor Donald L. Dear, a junior high school teacher first elected in 1978, is running unopposed for a fourth term, and City Clerk May Doi is unchallenged in her bid for a third term.

The decision of City Treasurer George Kobayashi, a 13-year incumbent, not to run for another term has sparked a three-way contest for the $200-a-month part-time job. Running are real estate consultant Jonathan Kaji, retired Internal Revenue Service public affairs officer Kenneth L. Sutton and certified public accountant Lorenzo Ybarra.

Cragin, 63, an adjuster for a Gardena insurance company, was first appointed to the council in 1982 and reelected in 1984. Cragin said he prefers the at-large system of election and opposes dividing the city into councilmanic districts. “At 5.2 square miles, we’re too small to start playing that kind of game,” he said. “What you do for one (district) you have to do for the other, and if you don’t have the funds nothing gets accomplished.”

In an election mostly free of mudslinging, the most direct attack has been Nelson’s accusation that Cragin is indecisive in his voting patterns.

Cragin said he has changed his mind on only one issue: when he voted in 1986 to approve an 84-unit apartment complex at 141st Street and Budlong Avenue. Cragin said he changed his vote when he learned that the owner had the right to build low-rent apartments without the city’s approval for people displaced by the Century Freeway. The city instead approved moderate-income housing for the site.

Tsukahara, 61, a Gardena dentist, is seeking his third term on the council. If reelected, Tsukahara said he hopes to continue pushing for further commercial development in the city, including the long-delayed Eldorado hotel project, a $56-million office and hotel complex originally scheduled to be completed in January, 1989. Earlier this week, George Anthony, owner of the Eldorado Club and a partner in the project, said he hoped to secure most of the financing within the month from a single investor.

Other projects Tsukahara said he wants the city to support include converting a vacant hospital building at 2303 Compton Blvd. into housing for senior citizens, and the commercial development of 26 acres that the city bought from Caltrans on Artesia Boulevard.

Hadley, 50, is a management consultant at Northrop who heads his own consulting firm and teaches business at El Camino Community College. After an unsuccessful run for the council in 1986, Hadley said he is running again because the council is unresponsive to the city’s blacks and Latinos.

“If you look at the history of Gardena, since its inception we haven’t had a black or Hispanic elected to the City Council,” Hadley said. “I’m projecting that Gardena’s black population is 26% and the Hispanic population is 18%. That’s 44% of the population, and I think it’s time we had direct representation in local government.”

If he wins a council seat, Hadley said he would advocate greater city control of new developments, including more restrictions on how new commercial projects are planned and designed.

Oversize Rooftop Signs

Nelson, 62, is a longtime community activist who has been conspicuous to some Gardena residents because of the oversize signs he routinely attaches to the roof of his car.

Nelson said he is running because the voting records of the council members are “pretty poor” on housing and development, and called the city’s 4% utility tax unfair to senior citizens and residents on fixed incomes.

As an example of what he termed the council’s pro-development and pro-apartment bias, Nelson cited the approval of the 84-unit apartment building at 141st Street and Budlong Avenue built despite a petition circulated by residents opposing it.

Nelson said he would also work to rid Gardena of graffiti and bring more jobs into the city.

For the first time since City Treasurer Kobayashi took office 13 years ago, the race for city treasurer is wide open and has shaped up into a tight contest among three political newcomers.

Real estate consultant Jonathan Kaji, 32, has lived in Gardena for 30 years and is president of the Gardena chapter of the Japanese American Citizens League. His father, Bruce T. Kaji, is a former city treasurer and one of the first Japanese elected to public office in the United States, Kaji said. Kaji is also the nephew of City Councilman Paul Tsukahara.

A graduate of USC, Kaji formerly worked for the City of Los Angeles as a labor market analyst in the community development department and is a former vice president of Merit Savings Bank.

Kenneth L. Sutton, 63, a 35-year Gardena resident and graduate of California State University, Long Beach, is a former Gardena Planning Commission chairman who was a public affairs officer with the Internal Revenue Service for most of the 30 years he spent working for the government.

He is director of the Gardena Community Access Corp. and past president of the Gardena Valley Democratic Club, the Gardena YMCA Men’s Club and the Friends of the Library.

Lorenzo Ybarra, 46, is a Gardena native whose family has lived in the city since 1915. A graduate of USC and Harvard Business School, Ybarra is a certified public accountant who has worked for Price Waterhouse & Co. and now heads his own firm in Gardena.

Ybarra has been a part-time faculty member at UCLA and El Camino Community College, was former director of the Gardena Valley Chamber of Commerce, and is presently treasurer of the Gardena YMCA.

COUNCIL CANDIDATES

Ollie B. Hadley

Age: 50

Occupation: Management consultant

Civic experience: Gardena Valley Chamber of Commerce, Hollypark Political Action Committee

Eldore (Bud) Nelson

Age: 62

Occupation: Retired

Civic experience: Community activist

Paul Tsukahara

Age: 61

Occupation: Dentist