Anger May Hold Sway at Ballot Box

Angry Culver City residents descended on City Hall several times during the past year, lambasting council members and forcing them to reverse decisions on the location of the new city hall, a proposed maintenance fee assessment district and traffic barricades in Sunkist Park.

On April 12, voters will show how deep their dissatisfaction runs when they decide the most hotly contested city election in recent memory.

Three incumbents, three former councilmen and three first-time candidates are running for three open seats on the council.

“This is probably the most competitive election I’ve been in since my first one (in 1976),” said Councilman Paul A. Jacobs. “The number of candidates, as well as the experience and quality of those candidates, makes it a very competitive race.”

During their last reelection bid four years ago, incumbents Jacobs, Richard (Dick) Brundo and Paul A. Netzel faced only two challengers.

Unpopular Decisions

But the incumbents’ unpopular decisions last year and a growing perception that they have allowed too much development was enough to convince six challengers that the time is ripe for change.

“What we have to do is stop trying to do new things and fix the things that we have,” said challenger Jim Boulgarides, who served on the council from 1972-80. “We’ve neglected our parks and our programs, we’ve neglected beautification and the basic preservation of neighborhoods.”

Overflow traffic from commercial development has forced homeowners in some neighborhoods to pay for permits to park in front of their houses, and on the east side of town, residents have been afraid to use the park there since the city laid off its park supervisors last year, said Boulgarides, 64, a business management professor at Cal State Los Angeles.

“We’re thinking about spending $20 million on a new city hall when we haven’t got enough money to keep our neighborhoods running,” he said. “That doesn’t make sense.”

Brundo, however, said residents he has talked to are pleased with the council’s leadership.

“All in all, I think Culver City is an excellent town and I think it is very effectively run--both financially and service-wise,” said Brundo, 46, an interior designer.

The Culver City mayor, seeking his fourth term on the council, said he is running this campaign on his record and his involvement in the community, the same way he always has.

“I’ve been pleased with the reception I’ve received both on the telephone and in person, knocking door-to-door,” he said. “I’ve had no anti-Dick Brundo or anti-incumbent concerns expressed.”

But former Councilman Ron Perkins said he is running because he believes the council has lost touch with the community.

Perkins, 66, a retired police captain, was a councilman for 12 years until he was defeated in 1986 amid a scandal concerning his business dealings with developer W. Patrick Moriarty.

He has since been absolved of any wrongdoing and is confident voters will return him to office, despite his record as a supporter of commercial development, he said.

This year, Perkins is campaigning as a slow-growth candidate.

“While it’s true that I’ve supported a lot of development in the past, what I like to say is, if you’re doing something today the same way you did it 10 years ago, you’re probably doing it wrong,” he said. “And I think that’s where this present council is.”

Jacobs, an attorney, said his performance has been the same since he first took office 12 years ago and he hopes voters recognize that.

“My record has been consistent with a vision and certain values about what this community is and what it should be, and I’m satisfied with that, and I leave it up to the voters to agree or disagree,” he said.

Jacobs, the only council member to vote against the Corporate Pointe office project near Fox Hills, said that although he is not entirely satisfied with the council’s record on development, he does think it has achieved a good balance of commercial and residential usage.

Because of this balance, he said, “we have been able to relieve homeowners of the great majority of the cost of the services they receive.”

But former Councilman Richard E. Pachtman, who served from 1968-76, said that since he left the council the city Redevelopment Agency has been running amok, diverting taxes from state and county agencies and approving development such as Corporate Pointe and downtown’s Filmland Corporate Center, which he called “out of place.”

Pachtman, 64, said he did not want to run, but believed he had to after the council’s performance last year.

“I think they’ve got delusions of grandeur and a zest for development,” he said.

But Netzel, seeking his third term in office, said the challengers have misrepresented much of the council’s record on development.

“I am convinced that Culver City has an exemplary record on development,” he said, citing the city’s 43-foot height limit in 11 of the city’s 14 commercial zoning districts, the rejection of a proposed 12-story building on the Jefferson Bowl site and parking requirements twice as stringent as Los Angeles’.

The council has also worked to limit projects in neighboring Los Angeles that will affect traffic in Culver City, said Netzel, 46, a professional fund-raiser for nonprofit groups.

“We were able to force the developer (of the Howard Hughes Center) to give Culver City $3 million for traffic mitigation in our city,” he said.

Challenger Steven Gourley, a 38-year-old attorney, said that the developer has agreed to pay the city about $2.2 million when various phases of the 2.7-million-square-foot project are completed.

“They didn’t reduce the center one square foot,” Gourley said.

The only part of the project already built, the Wang Building, “has more than a $3-million impact on Culver City (streets) right now,” he added.

Gourley, who worked in Los Angeles Councilwoman Ruth Galanter’s campaign last year, called the issues in this election “right up my alley.”

“Slow growth, traffic, pollution, toxics--these have always been my issues,” he said. “I don’t have to make up new positions and new stories and backtrack and apologize the way the incumbents have. I’ve always been there on these issues.”

Also running for council are Janine Lauren, a building design consultant, and write-in candidate Randy Unruh, the youngest son of late state Treasurer Jesse Unruh.

Lauren, 43, said she entered the race to raise issues, such as the child-care shortage and over-reliance on the automobile, and to test American democratic principles.

“I think I did raise issues (no one else would),” she said. “But I don’t think it won me any Brownie points.”

Unruh, who moved to Culver City in August, started his first campaign by missing the deadline for inclusion on the ballot, then deciding to run as a write-in candidate.

The 35-year-old computer consultant said he expected to win based on his “name recognition, the feeling about the issue of development and traffic in the city, and the fact that I expect my father’s campaign fund to generously support me.”

His last campaign disclosure statement showed Unruh had spent $272 on the election, by far the least of any candidate.

Madale Watson, secretary controller of Friends of Jesse Unruh, said the group’s trustees had not even discussed Randy Unruh’s request for part of the $1.3-million campaign war chest his father left behind.

Also being decided this election is the city treasurer’s position.

Deputy City Treasurer Sue A. McCabe, 43, and local businessman William (Bill) Eskridge, 39, are running for the $58,000-a-year job being vacated this year by longtime City Treasurer Lu Herrera.

Herrera will retire April 19 after six terms as treasurer.