Election ’89 : Voters in Orange Headed Toward Sweeping Incumbents From Office : Schools: Scandal-rocked board in danger of being unseated. In Santa Ana, Richards takes a slim lead in early returns.

Voters appeared headed toward sweeping the scandal-rocked Orange Unified School District board out of office Tuesday night, with early returns showing that at least two of three incumbents would be ousted and four newcomers would win seats.

“We’re thrilled,” said Hazel Stover, president of the teachers union that had opposed every incumbent. “Things can only get better. They can’t possibly get worse.”

Mismanagement was the key issue in the race, in which 15 challengers and three incumbents vied for five seats on the Orange Unified School District’s seven-member board.

Only one of the three incumbents, Sandy Gilbert Englander, was leading--and only by a slim margin--after a race conducted in the shadow of a 3-year-old kickback scandal that left one candidate running for reelection while still awaiting trial.

The race also was punctuated with pickets by teachers, slashed telephone lines at the teachers union office, reports that campaign signs had been torn down, and allegations that the school board had voted on a crucial school redistricting matter--one with racial overtones--at a meeting held in Palm Springs.

At the center of the storm was Joe J. Cherry, 57, of Silverado Canyon, who was charged in connection with the kickback scandal. Cherry was widely criticized for his decision to run for reelection and appeared to be losing his seat in early returns.

“In Orange, there are no issues this time,” Cherry said. “This is straight politics.”

“The school board has no place for someone who’s been indicted,” said 38-year-old Barry P. Resnick, a Rancho Santiago College professor who held a large lead over Cherry. Before the election, Resnick had vowed, “If Cherry wins, my kids go to private school.”

Cherry’s other opponents included a county land-use planner, a Rockwell International Corp. executive, a schoolbook distributor, an engineer and an attorney.

The teachers union, which had been sharply critical of the trustees, came out in favor of an entirely revamped board and did not endorse a single incumbent.

“It’s time for a change,” said Stover, president of the Orange Unified Education Assn. “Things have deteriorated to the point of being all politics and no business.”

The union, which accused the trustees of allowing overcrowded classrooms, failing to support the bilingual education program and dragging their feet on contract negotiations, had supported four candidates: Resnick against Cherry; Nancy Moore, 47, against Jane McCracken, appointed to the board in January; and Lila Beavans, 59, and James Preston, 37, for two open seats.

The union endorsed neither incumbent Sandy G. Englander of Orange nor her challenger John Hurley, an Anaheim college instructor.

The Orange Unified School District serves more than 25,000 students in Orange, Villa Park and portions of Anaheim, Garden Grove and Santa Ana.

In Santa Ana, the contest for two school board seats had been billed as a chance to install a Latino majority on the governing board of a district in which 80% of the students are Latino.

But in early returns, incumbent James A. Richards had a slim lead. And the race between Richard C. Hernandez, a program administrator at Orange Coast College, and Robert W. Balen, a project manager for an Irvine traffic engineering firm, was too close to call. Both had been endorsed by the teachers union.

In the last election, voters dissatisfied with the incumbents swept into office three challengers, all of whom had been endorsed by the Santa Ana Educators Assn.

“There’s still some of that feeling around, that we need a more proactive, progressive board with new ideas and fresh thoughts,” Balen said.

Karen K. Torrence, who ran on a platform of traditional family values and said her election would show that voters “are tired of the Establishment,” was trailing in fourth place.

Richards, the only incumbent seeking reelection, had said the anti-incumbent sentiment was a thing of the past. But he predicted a close race.

Problems facing the Santa Ana school board include combatting school overcrowding, trying to reduce the 26% student dropout rate and increasing sagging scores on standardized tests.

In Irvine, the race for two seats on the Irvine Unified School District board cooled abruptly after a contract was signed last week with the Irvine Teachers Assn., which did not even endorse a candidate because of the contract talks.

“Now, with the contract talks out of the way, this election has left us with nothing to really debate about,” said incumbent Greg Smith, who was the top vote-getter in early returns.

Smith, the top vote-getter in early returns, and fellow incumbent Margie Wakeham, who seemed likely to easily claim the second open seat, had proposed no major changes in policy for the city that has traditionally prided itself on its schools.

In the final days of the election, four newcomers and two incumbents had competed for two open seats in Irvine Unified on platforms that included calls for better day-care facilities and plans for cutting costs by keeping closer tabs on telephone bills.

In Anaheim, two incumbents and an Anaheim police officer seemed headed for an easy victory over three other challengers competing for three seats on the Anaheim City School District board. All six candidates agreed that some schools would have to be switched to year-round schedules due to classroom overcrowding.

The elementary school district runs 21 schools and serves 13,850 students, a growing number of whom speak only limited English.

Incumbents Celia Dougherty, 54, a Garden Grove elementary school assistant principal, and Betty Patterson, 52, a substitute teacher, prevailed, although they reported spending less than $1,000 on the campaign.

Their challengers, realtor Barbara C. Gonzales and Lou Lopez, 45, an Anaheim police officer, were backed by the teachers union.

Lopez, who has run the most aggressive campaign, had a nearly 2-to-1 lead over Gonzales in early returns. He said he spent about $9,000 to send mailers to 12,500 homes, install signs and run newspaper advertisements. About $1,500 came from the teachers union, Lopez said.

Shrinking enrollment was the issue in the Huntington Beach Union High School District, where three incumbents and a challenger vied for three school board seats. Incumbents said they opposed closing any of the seven high schools in Huntington Beach, Westminster and Fountain Valley, despite a 1987 study that said such a move could save $2.5 million.

The challenger, 51-year-old Tom Steele of Fountain Valley, has proposed combining the high school district with four local elementary school districts to cut administrative costs. He was trailing in early returns.

Voters in the Coast Community College District were to elect two trustees to a board that will likely have to decide whether to lease college land to a private developer in order to raise money.

Challenger Deborah Sperberg, 50, of Corona del Mar and incumbent board President Walter G. Howald, 50, of Newport Beach opposed building apartments on college lands. Incumbent trustee Sherry L. Baum, 58, of Seal Beach supported studying such lease arrangements as part of a master plan for district growth. In early returns, Baum and Howald held commanding leads.

In Garden Grove, incumbents Maureen G. DiMarco, 41, of Cypress and Richard H. Hain, 68, of Garden Grove were headed for an easy win over challenger Watson Lewis Warren, 44, of Santa Ana.

And in the Whittier-based Lowell Joint School District, four candidates competed for three seats on the five-member board, which serves part of La Habra. Incumbents Janet B. Averill, 53, a former teacher, and Joyce Canfield, 54, a teacher, and Jerry Powell, an appointed incumbent and a Los Angeles Police Department sergeant, were headed for victory over challenger Pam Overstreet, 40, a computer programmer.

Shannon Sands and Tom McQueeney contributed to this report.