ELECTION / TORRANCE : Satisfaction or Apathy? Council Incumbents Have Only 1 Challenger

During the past two years, Torrance residents have debated the future of the Mobil Oil refinery, watched lawsuits pile up against their Police Department and complained to the City Council about development and traffic.

These have been active political times by any standard.

But by the 5 p.m. deadline Thursday, only one resident had filed to run against the three incumbent City Council members up for reelection on March 6. Unless someone stages a surprise write-in campaign, no one will run against Mayor Katy Geissert.

All in all, the Torrance election of 1990 is turning up the fewest challengers the city has seen in years.

Grocery store checker Donald Pyles, 34, filed his intent to run for office a little more than an hour before the deadline.

Pyles said he grew up in Torrance and lives with his wife, Lola, and four children in the Victoria Knolls section of the city.

A one-time legislative intern in the office of former Mayor Jim Armstrong, Pyles graduated from Torrance High School in 1973 and studied political science briefly at UCLA. He has continued his education at Lutheran Bible Institute of California in Anaheim and Harbor College but has not yet earned a degree, he said.

Pyles moved his family from San Pedro to Torrance in July.

“I like all the people on the City Council, but I have a prerogative as a citizen to run and I’m simply exercising that right to run,” he said. “I think I have just as good a chance as the incumbents.”

Council members said they are pleased that someone decided to make a race out of the election.

“I’m glad someone filed because it’s real frustrating not to have a race,” Councilwoman Dee Hardison said. Without a challenger, “how do you go out to the people? How do you determine if what you’re doing is what they want?”

Hardison, 51, a special education program coordinator for the Torrance Unified School District, is running for her second term in office. She was the top vote-getter in a field of eight candidates during her first race in 1986.

This run for City Council most likely will be her last, she said, because she is nearing eligibility for early retirement from her job.

Councilman Mark Wirth, 39, a communications technician, said he also was disturbed by initial indications there might be no challengers.

“A reelection is kind of report-card time,” said Wirth, who is seeking his third term. “It’s time for the citizens to tell me how they think the city is doing, how they think I’m doing. (It is) a chance for them to complain and also tell us what we’re doing right.

“I think that’s the kind of election we’re going to have.”

Councilman Bill Applegate, 46, said he intends to run “a normal campaign--hit the pavement and do what you have to do.”

Applegate said he expected to see as many as a dozen candidates for office, as Torrance elections often have.

“Maybe the people that are out there thinking about running are saying, ‘They’ve done a good job and they’ll probably get reelected,’ ” he said. “Hopefully this just means that the people think we’ve done a decent job.”

Although Geissert, who was first elected to the City Council in 1974, will run unopposed, she plans to attend all candidate forums and is considering walking precincts to chat with voters.

Noting that the City Charter does not allow her to run for a third term as mayor, she said this election will be her last.

Also running unopposed on the March 6 ballot will be City Clerk John Bramhall, who was appointed to the position last year following the death of City Clerk Don Wilson, and Treasurer Tom Rupert, who was first appointed to that position in 1964 and is running for his seventh full term in office.