The Earthquake Politics of Whittier : Reconstruction: The upcoming City Council election is seen as a referendum on how officials responded to the 1987 temblor.

More than 2 1/2 years after an earthquake damaged 5,000 homes and businesses in Whittier, residents will vote April 10 in an election widely seen as a referendum on how city officials responded to the disaster and the slow process of reconstruction that followed.

Not all has gone well in Whittier, a community of 73,000 residents, since the October, 1987, earthquake destroyed many of the Victorian homes and quaint businesses that made up the heart of the city’s historic Uptown district.

Today, about 20% of the damaged buildings in the city are still under reconstruction. City officials recently predicted that it might take as long as 10 years to completely rebuild the earthquake-damaged area.

Preservationists are still fighting legal battles to keep the city from demolishing several landmark buildings. And merchants who have stuck it out for the past two years while the Uptown commercial area is rebuilt say business has yet to reach pre-earthquake levels.

Such is the discontent in the predominantly Republican city founded by Quakers 109 years ago that slow-growth, pro-preservation candidates stand a fair chance of winning at least one of the two seats up for grabs in next month’s City Council election.

“Some of the city councilmen aren’t even aware of what’s going on Uptown,” said Paulette Adams, owner of an Uptown furniture and interior design store. “They’ve got so many other things going, it may not be a top priority for them.”

Election campaigns in Whittier are usually low-profile affairs, with an emphasis on civility. This year, however, the election has been colored with contentious and bitter debates about mini-malls, gang violence, condominium complexes, overcrowded streets, and, of course, earthquake reconstruction.

“You can’t hide from the world; it’s out there,” said Fred Bergerson, 48, a City Council candidate and political science professor at Whittier College. “The earthquake forced the city to wake up to all kinds of realities. It was a physical reminder that we don’t have control over the future.”

Among the slow-growth candidates is Helen Rahder, 38, a former schoolteacher. Rahder is a founding member of the Whittier Conservancy, a preservationist group that formed just a week after the quake to stop the demolition of badly damaged historic buildings. The conservancy has since become Whittier’s most outspoken residents’ organization.

Rahder charges that the city allowed developers to replace many earthquake-damaged, single-family homes with unsightly apartment buildings, altering forever the quiet, small-town feel of the Uptown neighborhood.

“We’re fighting an old philosophy that says you should bulldoze every hill and any development is good development,” Rahder said. “The old-boy network that has governed Whittier for the past 100 years is no longer acceptable and no longer provides the leadership we need to face these problems into the next century.”

Gene Chandler, 66, is the only incumbent in the race. Despite criticism of the council’s handling of the reconstruction process, Chandler said, “I’m running on my record following the earthquake. There is still a lot to be done, but we’ve accomplished a lot. We have some beautiful buildings that have replaced the structures we lost.”

Chandler, who has served two terms on the five-member council, said he regrets that this year’s campaign has been marred by some mean-spirited debates.

“I think we have some very vocal candidates who, unfortunately, are not dealing in fact,” Chandler said. “(Rahder) is overstating her position. I don’t think the character of Whittier has been destroyed. You can drive down the streets of Whittier and pretty much see the same town there was before.”

Still, most of the candidates agree that, in the aftermath of the earthquake, development has become the central issue in the campaign.

“Whittier had a certain sense of style and uniqueness,” said council candidate Bob Henderson, 49, a founder of Friends of the Hills, a group that has attempted to slow development of the Whittier Hills. “I think there is a general feeling that we’re losing that uniqueness, that we’re allowing fast-food places and strip malls on every corner.”

Other candidates include Francois Pellissier, a 56-year-old real estate appraiser whose family has lived in Whittier for four generations. David Todd, 50, the outgoing president of the Whittier Chamber of Commerce, received the endorsement of the Commercial Property Owners Assn. of Uptown Whittier.

Landlords in the Uptown district say they have struggled to find merchants to move into the buildings that they spent thousands of dollars to rebuild after the earthquake.

Some blame the high vacancy rate on new city restrictions on the types of tenants that can locate in the buildings. Todd has said the restrictions should be relaxed.

Times staff writer Tina Daunt contributed to this story.