Local Elections : Cityhood, Council Seats, Growth at Stake in Elections : 11 Candidates Seek 3 Seats in Pomona

Some believe this is a city on the move, with the potential to be one of America’s best. Others say it is a decaying town, rife with drugs, gang violence and civic corruption. And holders of both viewpoints are hoping voters support their view of Pomona on Tuesday.

Considering that the council has decided numerous issues by 3-2 votes, the outcome could affect the policies in the city of 119,000 for at least the next two years.

Donna Smith, elected Pomona’s first woman mayor two years ago, is seeking reelection against a field of five challengers, former Mayor G. Stanton Selby, Jerry Keane, Anthony (Tony) Foster, Al Ramirez and Michael E. Johnson.

C. L. (Clay) Bryant, Smith’s nemesis on the council since he was elected in 1987, is being challenged by Nancy Lopez. Longtime council member E. J. (Jay) Gaulding is being challenged by Tomas Ursua and Phyllis Arguella.

If none of the candidates running for mayor or for Gaulding’s seat receive more than 50% of the vote, a runoff will be held between the top two vote-getters on April 18.

Smith, 34, is running on a platform of continuing the improvements made in the city over the past two years. Among her accomplishments, she cites plans for new shopping facilities, establishment of an automated trash pickup service, the relighting of street lights that had been turned off to save money, and reduction of the residential utility tax from 11% to 10%.

“Critics may charge that Pomona’s going nowhere . . . but it’s just not true,” Smith said.

Smith has her share of critics, and the most vociferous is not even running against her. In his campaign, Bryant, 68, has heaped more invective on Smith and Gaulding than on his opponent.

“I could not be honest with you or myself if I went along with the rip-off and shenanigans,” said Bryant, who has consistently accused the council majority of being irresponsible spendthrifts. “I’d rather die.”

Gaulding, 68, who is running for his third term, defended the council and the city from Bryant’s criticisms.

“I think there’s a great distortion of facts in what Councilman Bryant is saying,” Gaulding said. “I say we got the best city around here.”

However, the five challengers seeking to unseat Smith reject the view that all is going well in the city.

“There’s been a long line of failures under her administration,” said candidate Keane. “I feel the image she presents is bad. The controversy that she’s been involved with is bad for Pomona.”

Keane, a 31-year-old mechanic, is a member of the city’s Merit System Commission and former president of Pomona Concerned Citizens. He favors hiring more police and criticized the council’s cut in the residential utility tax because it was offset by an increase in the utility tax for businesses. Keane said he favors electing council members by district.

Mayoral challenger Foster, 36, a building contractor, said he would cut the utility tax to 7% and make up the shortfall by taking $1.5 million from sanitation department reserves. He disputed Smith’s argument that there is not enough money to hire additional police officers and substantially cut the utility tax without cutting needed programs elsewhere in the budget.

“The money is there,” Foster said. “It’s the priorities. New garbage trucks took the place of more officers on the street.”

Selby, 68, is also seeking to reclaim the office he lost in 1987, when he finished third behind Smith and Bryant in the primary. Selby, who lost in a bid for a seat on the Three Valleys Municipal Water District Board of Directors in November, criticized Smith for the disturbances and occasional arrests at council meetings in the past year.

“The three-ring circus going on at these meetings . . . is an embarrassment,” Selby said. “I was on the council 10 years and I can’t remember when a person had to be escorted out because of disruptive behavior. Now, this is a regular occurence.”

Ironically, Selby found himself sitting at a recent forum next to candidate Ramirez, who was arrested twice for disrupting council meetings in 1988. One charge was dropped and a jury acquitted Ramirez on the other. He was arrested again at a council meeting Feb. 21 and was released the following morning, just in time for a Chamber of Commerce candidates’ breakfast.

Ramirez operates the Miracle Music Ministry, which offers instruction in music, spirituality and sex, and expresses his viewpoints through self-published flyers and classified ads in a local newspaper. He believes Smith is part of an evil conspiracy that also involves the school board, local businesses and international drug dealers.

“They absolutely represent a devilish role--and I mean that in the literal sense--to this administration,” Ramirez said. “I have talked about fraud and corruption, but you have seen no hell like what is forthcoming.”

Perhaps the most puzzling of the mayoral candidates is Johnson. At a candidates forum, Johnson, 45, asked to give his qualifications, instead read the title page from a book about Vietnam, including the name and address of the publisher. The moderator interrupted and asked him to restrict his comments to the question at hand.

Johnson was absent from Tuesday night’s candidates forum after being arrested by Pomona police earlier in the day on suspicion of two counts of brandishing a firearm based on complaints by two people at the apartment complex in which he lives. An apartment employee and the apartment manager told police that Johnson threatened them with a shotgun in two separate incidents Monday night and Tuesday morning, police said.

Police took Johnson to Tri-City Mental Health in Pomona, where an interviewer recommended that he be taken to the Los Angeles County Jail’s medical ward for further examination, Sgt. Gary Elofson said. Johnson remained in custody Wednesday, he added.

Campaign Criticized

In contrast to the critical views of other challengers is the campaign of Lopez, Bryant’s only opponent, who said Pomona has the potential the be “No. 1 city in the United States.” Lopez, a 51-year-old housewife and community volunteer, supports Smith and Gaulding and said that Bryant is a negative influence on the council.

“The problem is not so much Donna and Jay, the problem is that Clay Bryant seems not to like anyone he can’t intimidate and control,” she said. “If you don’t go his way, he’ll find a way to discredit you.”

Facing Gaulding in his bid for reelection are Ursua and Arguella.

Ursua, a 33-year-old builder, is a plaintiff in a suit filed against the city in 1985, which claims that its system of at-large elections denies equal representation to minorities. A federal court judge ruled in favor of the city in 1986, but an appeal is pending in the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals.

Ursua said he offers voters “innovation and energy. . . . The incumbent is getting along in years and frankly doesn’t have the technical or educational background needed for the future of the city.”

Arguella, 65, a retired nurse, blamed the current administration for Pomona being proclaimed the “most stressful city” in a national survey based on crime, population growth and other factors. She is linking her candidacy to those of Ramirez and Bryant, who she said “are the only ones who said they would clean out City Hall.”

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