Pryor Lays Base for Another Run at Mayor’s Post

Luanne Pryor, a political newcomer who made a surprisingly strong showing in last year’s mayoral elections, is laying groundwork for another run for the mayor’s seat in 1990.

“I feel we can get it,” Pryor told a gathering of supporters at her home last week, discounting advice that she instead move to the 3rd District and make a bid for Jan Hall’s council seat.

Pryor says she is not ready to announce her candidacy formally, but is forming a committee to gauge her chances in the next election, when Mayor Ernie Kell is expected to run again for the full-time post.

Issues Unchanged

A public relations executive, Pryor captured nearly a quarter of the votes in the April elections, forcing Kell and Hall into a runoff, which Kell won.

The issues have not changed since then, said Pryor, who ran a grass-roots campaign that stressed slow-growth issues. Referring to Kell’s recent State of the City address, Pryor asserted that he paid court to the established power structure of business and development interests, giving short shrift to minorities, neighborhood groups and the gay and lesbian community. “It’s the same old thing,” she contended.

The advice that she postpone another run for mayor until first establishing a power base on the council came from one of Pryor’s key supporters, Sid Solomon of Long Beach Area Citizens Involved, a citywide political group.

‘3rd District Isn’t Me’

“I hear you, Sid,” Pryor responded. “But it’s not me. The 3rd District is not me.” She later said she was “pretty much discounting” the idea of running for the council, preferring instead the forum of a citywide position. Whatever position Pryor pursues, Solomon said he would help her. “I go along with her decision,” Solomon said this week. “I certainly will be behind her 100%, whatever she wants.”

Solomon had suggested that Pryor move from the 2nd District in the central shore area of the city to run for the City Council from the 3rd District, which is next-door to the east and includes Belmont Shore and Naples. Solomon argued that 3rd District incumbent Hall had been made politically vulnerable by her loss to Kell.

To assess her political chances within the next few months, Pryor said she will probably do some polling and look for financial backers. Last year she had only a fraction of the hundreds of thousands of dollars Kell and Hall had at their disposal, and Pryor still has a $6,000 campaign debt to pay off.

Although she had indicated after the election that she planned to move temporarily to Boston to write a book about her experiences as a middle-aged Harvard graduate student, Pryor says she decided to stay in Long Beach to finish the book. Her house remains on the market, but even if she does sell it, she says she will just move to a smaller place in the 2nd District.