LOCAL ELECTIONS IRWINDALE : 7 Campaign for 3 Seats on Council : Government: Candidates are discovering that voters haven’t forgotten the city’s $10-million attempt to land the Raiders.

The Los Angeles Raiders may be bound for Oakland, but they’re still casting a long shadow over Irwindale politics.

As seven City Council candidates go door to door with campaign flyers and buttons, they’re learning that residents haven’t forgotten about the $10 million the city paid to Raiders owner Al Davis more than two years ago in an ultimately unsuccessful attempt to land the team.

“I had something to do with bringing (the Raiders) in,” said Councilman Joseph Breceda, one of three incumbents running in the April 10 election. “(Voters) probably will blame me for trying to bring them in.”

With only 551 registered voters in Irwindale, the candidates face another challenge unique to the tiny city: the complex web of family alliances and rivalries that has governed local politics since the city’s incorporation in 1957.

The candidates for the three council seats are: Breceda; Councilman Robert Diaz; Councilman Patricio Miranda; Fred Barbosa, whose lawsuit against the city barred officials from working on the Raiders stadium project for more than a year; Mike Miranda, who is Councilman Miranda’s nephew; Jacquelyn Quintero, Breceda’s niece; and Joseph Tapia, the brother of former Mayor Art Tapia.

Breceda, a council member since 1972, refused to discuss his candidacy, saying, “I’m not committing myself on anything. The people have a lot of respect for me. I was born and raised in Irwindale. I belong to the VFW, the American Legion, the senior citizens.”

Diaz, 39, has served one term on the City Council. A teacher at Bell Gardens Elementary School, Diaz said he is concerned about the “unnecessary legal fees” the city paid to negotiate with the Raiders and to defend itself against lawsuits filed to block the stadium project.

“For example, we have two city attorneys, in essence,” Diaz said, referring to City Atty. Charles Martin, and Orange County lawyer R. Zaiden Corrado, who was hired to spearhead the Raiders deal and retained as a consultant on other projects. The Raiders bid dragged on for 18 months, until March 12, when Oakland officials announced Davis was moving his team to their city.

“A lot of time and attention has been diverted from more positive aspects in the community,” Diaz said.

Patricio Miranda, who served on the city’s first Planning Commission in 1957 and has been a councilman since 1961, is running for his eighth four-year term. While on the council, he said, he has seen development and redevelopment transform Irwindale into a thriving center of industry and commerce.

“Irwindale has progressed greatly,” Miranda said in a statement. “I have been able to . . . vote for many of the projects which can be seen as you look around Irwindale.”

In addition to the challenge he is facing from the other candidates, Miranda has another opponent of sorts: Fred Lyte, Irwindale’s former redevelopment consultant who was fired in late 1988 after a falling out with Miranda.

Recently, Lyte mailed letters to Irwindale residents in which he criticizes Miranda and reveals details of a conflict-of-interest lawsuit filed last year against the councilman by a resident. The lawsuit claims Miranda should have resigned from the city’s redevelopment agency when it voted in 1987 to approve a land-lease agreement that stood to benefit him financially. Miranda abstained from the vote and has denied any wrongdoing.

Miranda said he believes voters will disregard Lyte’s mail campaign. “A lot of the things in his letters, a lot of people in Irwindale know it’s not true,” Miranda said.

Barbosa, 41, an operating engineer for Pomona-based Diversified Materials, is probably best known for obstructing Irwindale’s multimillion-dollar bid to land the Raiders.

In 1987, Barbosa, along with Los Angeles City Councilman Ernani Bernardi and a group of Irwindale residents, sued Irwindale to try to block the Raiders stadium project. A judge barred Irwindale from further negotiations until it completed an environmental impact report, which took more than a year.

In his campaign literature, Barbosa attacked the City Council for giving Davis $10 million up front but failing to put together a viable stadium project.

“Residents ask me, ‘How can you run if you sued the city?’ ” Barbosa said. “I tell them I did it for the good of the community.”

Barbosa said he also wants to improve emergency services during major disasters and speed up adoption of the city’s budget.

Mike Miranda, 26, Patricio Miranda’s nephew and son of Irwindale Police Chief Julian Miranda, is making his first run for public office. He said he’s “shooting for independent votes.”

“I’m going to get a lot of them,” he said. Miranda, who runs a professional golf shop at the Yorba Linda Country Club, said support from his uncle’s allies may be thin because he received a $16,000 college scholarship from a private fund set up for Irwindale youths by Lyte and others.

“My family knows I chitchat with Fred,” he said. “People hold that against me. They think if I’m hired I’m going to bring back Fred Lyte.” Miranda added that he has not received and doesn’t expect his uncle’s endorsement.

He said he wants to “tighten the reins” on Irwindale city government, which he criticized as “ineffective” because some council members are related to city employees and department heads.

Quintero, 31, a banker running for council for the fourth time, said she wants to improve employee morale in City Hall and require evaluations of all city employees. (Only police officers are now reviewed.) She also wants to tighten code enforcement.

Quintero, Breceda’s niece, said Irwindale’s licensing procedure “has been lax to the point of many, many businesses being without permits.” As an example, she pointed to CalMat Co., a construction materials firm that for a time earlier this year hauled dirt from one gravel pit to another without a city permit, prompting complaints from residents and officials in Baldwin Park, which borders one of the pits.

The seventh candidate, Joseph Tapia, 65, is a park maintenance employee for Irwindale, and the brother of former Mayor Tapia. He said he plans to retire from the Parks Department this year. If elected to the council, he said he would work to establish a child-care center and promote housing for senior citizens.

Tapia said voters are “tired of lawsuits and stuff like that. I don’t think it’s in good taste. They were spending a lot of money when they first started with the Raiders.”