3 Candidates to Compete for 1 seat in Rolling Hills

Three candidates have filed to run for the Rolling Hills Estates City Council seat left vacant by the November recall of veteran Councilman Jerome Belsky.

The March 21 election will fill Belsky’s unexpired term, which ends in November.

Candidates are William Ailor, 43, an engineer and city planning commissioner; Jacqueline McGuire, 42, a teacher; and Robert Schachter, 38, an attorney.

Ailor got 788 votes as an unsuccessful write-in candidate in the 1987 council election. He finished fourth in a field of six candidates; the first three were elected. Schachter is past president of the Ranchview Homeowners’ Assn. and serves as a substitute judge in South Bay Municipal Court. Last year, McGuire was a leader of an effort by residents to get the city to purchase all of the 43-acre site of Dapplegray Intermediate School, which is closed.

The council eventually approved an agreement with the Palos Verdes Peninsula Unified School District to acquire only a portion of the site for 25% of market value, while the balance was to be sold for development. However, in the face of a pending lawsuit, the school district postponed the sale.

One of the complaints of a five-member recall committee was that the 70-year-old Belsky--who was recalled by a vote of 2,223 to 1,982--led the council in attacking residents’ proposed alternatives to the sale of the school to developers. Belsky denied the charge and said the entire council concluded there was no way the city could pay for all of the property.

No one from the recall committee filed for the council vacancy. The filing deadline was 5 p.m. Thursday. The election is expected to cost the city $10,000.