Vincent Loses Along With His Council, School Candidates

The biggest Inglewood loser in the Tuesday elections wasn’t even on the ballot: Mayor Ed Vincent, who had backed John Gibbs for council and the late Caroline Coleman for school board, saw both his candidates go down to defeat.

The results were the latest in a string of political reversals for the mayor.

In October, the state attorney general began investigating his campaign finances after published accounts alleged that he double-billed travel expenses to the city as well as his campaign fund. The attorney general filed a civil suit against him this spring alleging misuse of campaign funds.

In addition, a series of court decisions over the past two years, culminating in a May 24 state Supreme Court ruling, have kept public attention focused on Vincent’s role in the 1987 council election of Tony Thomas, whom the mayor backed. The election was annulled, in part because of the mayor’s involvement in Election Code violations involving absentee ballots.

In the school board race, Vincent had backed Caroline Coleman, and continued his support even after she died of cancer April 22, some six weeks before the election. In the last week of the campaign, he sent out a mailer criticizing candidate Thomasina Reed, a newcomer to Inglewood politics, as an unqualified carpetbagger.

But as the vote totals Tuesday night established a convincing victory for Reed, it was the mayor who came under attack. Reed, who won with 63% of the vote, said the returns proved that Vincent’s mailer had backfired.

Ollie L. Taylor, her campaign manager, added that the Tuesday vote totals marked the waning of the once-dominant influence of Vincent, who has been mayor since 1983 and a force in city politics since the mid-1970s.

As supporters broke open Cordon Negro champagne and cheered vote totals announced over television, Reed, who will take office in July, took a moment from her victory celebration to comment about the race.

“Many people resented the letter Vincent sent out. They are more concerned about the children of the district than about political manipulation by Mayor Vincent,” she said. “Ed Vincent was trying to put in someone else who would only do his bidding.”

Had Reed lost, the school board would have been able to appoint someone to Coleman’s seat or to call a special election.

In the council race, Gibbs, the candidate Vincent backed, lost to incumbent Councilman Danny Tabor, who took 52% of the vote.

The day after the election, Vincent labeled the winning margins of the candidates he had opposed “pretty good, convincing victories.”

He said he had no regrets for sending out the mailer about Reed.

“I have known (the late Caroline) Coleman 20 years, and what I said was the truth,” Vincent said. “I hope Mrs. Reed will be a good board member, and I hope Danny will be a good council member.”

Then he addressed the political fallout from the election, conceding he had suffered a setback.

“It doesn’t matter whose influence is ebbing,” he said. “It doesn’t matter if I am in office or Thomasina is in office or Danny is in office. We don’t count. Whatever the people want, that is what is important.”

Vincent was philosophical about the possibility that he might be defeated in 1990 elections.

“Before I was there, someone else was there. When I leave, someone else will be there then. But the city will always be there. The kids and the city are the big players. We all move on and we all pass. None of us are as important as we think we are. None of us,” he said.

“Some people don’t like me. People crucified Christ. . . . If people like what I have done, they will re-elect me. If they don’t, they will have a new mayor. And they will throw rocks at him, too. I have done the best I can do.”

The next test of Vincent’s influence will be the court-ordered rematch in October of the 1987 council race between Garland Hardeman, who lost but challenged the result in court, and Tony Thomas, who has remained in office pending appeals after his victory was annulled.

In the 1987 voting, according to judicial rulings, Vincent intimidated voters and invaded their right to ballot secrecy. In two cases, two voters testified that the mayor punched their absentee ballots for them.