Voters Across L.A. County Decide a Range of Issues

Democracy burst out all over Los Angeles County on Tuesday, as voters in 57 cities decided a multitude of civic issues stemming from the continuing influx of immigrants to the region and the frenetic pace of urban growth.

Mostly, voters in the patchwork of municipalities that make up suburban Los Angeles opted for change as they chose city council members and considered ballot initiatives in decidely low-key elections. The stirrings of discontent spoke in soft voices to the powerful forces transforming the metropolis.

In Huntington Park, two Latino candidates were elected to the City Council, becoming the first Latinos to serve on the body in the community’s history. La Puente voters swept three veteran councilman out office, marking the first time in 22 years that a newcower had ousted an incumbent. Three incumbents also lost out in Temple City.

Growth was a unifying theme in Culver City, Santa Clarita and Monterey Park. All were developed as bedroom communities, but this year campaigns were invigorated by seething debates over the proposed construction of an onslaught of shopping malls, apartment complexes and offices towers.

“People see that development brings in more cars on streets that are already overloaded,” said Richard Peiser, a professor of urban regional planning at USC who has followed Los Angeles County suburban politics. “In some cases, there are concerns about the types of people who are coming into the city.”

Such anxieties fueled a bitter campaign in Cerritos, where one Korean-American City Council candidate who recently moved to the city was called a “carpetbagger” by opponents who pointed to an abundant treasury built mostly with donations from Koreatown. With all ballots counted, he finished fourth in a field of 13 who were vying for three seats.

In Huntington Park and Bell Gardens, Latino candidates met with varied success as they attempted to join city councils for the first time in communities that always have been represented by Anglos--now a distinct minority.

Once a predominantly white, middle-class community, Huntington Park has undergone a demographic flip-flop over the last three decades. Last year, Latinos accounted for 90.6% of the city’s 59,000 residents, according to projections from the 1980 U.S. census.

For years, Latino political activists and voter rights groups singled out Huntington Park as a glaring example of a town where an ethnic minority has become a huge majority without winning representation in city government.

Raul Perez viewed his victory Tuesday as a boost for Latinos countywide who are trying to gain a greater political voice.

“I’m a Latino first and a candidate second,” Perez said. “We need representation.”

In Bell Gardens, however, challengers Josefina Macias and Rosa Hernandez were defeated as they sought to become the first Latinos to be elected to that City Council. Hernandez and Macias were out-polled by Douglas O’Leary and incumbent Ronald Bird by a 2-1 margin.

Both ethnicity and growth were central to change in Monterey Park. Voters in the San Gabriel Valley community strengthened regulations limiting residential growth and, in an upset, ousted two council members. Former Mayor Barry Hatch, known for his call for strict immigration controls, lost his seat on the City Council, as did incumbent Patricia M. Reichenberger.

Sam Kiang became the second Asian to be elected to the council in the predominantly Asian city.

On the Westside, Culver City voters selected the more stringent of two competing measures to limit the height of office buildings along the city’s main commercial strips. Measure 1, the product of a resident petition drive, was approved. It imposes a height limit of 56 feet, or about four stories, on buildings in the city’s busiest commercial zones.

Nevertheless, two pro-growth candidates--Mayor Jozelle Smith and Mike Balkman--won the two City Council seats. They out-polled Tom Hammons, who had billed himself as a slow-growth, grass-roots alternative.

In Whittier, voters were grappling with an even stronger force: geology. There, the City Council elections were widely seen as a referendum on how city officials responded to the 1987 earthquake that damaged 5,000 homes and businesses, most in Whittier’s historic Uptown district.

With more than half the votes counted, two slow-growth candidates appeared likely to win both open council seats.

“It’s a mandate over the policies of the old-boy network that has run this town for over a century,” said challenger Helen Rahder, who appeared likely to unseat incumbent John Chandler. “This is a protest vote. People are disgusted.”

Rahder led a preservationist group that fought a legal battle to keep the city from demolishing several landmark buildings.

Money, meanwhile, was the hottest election topic in Cerritos, where City Council candidate Charles J. Kim was criticized because the record $104,000 he raised came mostly from Koreatown contributors.

Kim, a 34-year-old newspaper columnist and political consultant, outspent some of the incumbents by more than 10 to 1. He denied allegations, however, that he was attempting to buy the election. Unofficial returns showed Kim far behind incumbent Ann Joynt and challengers Sherman Kappe and John Crawley.

“You can’t buy an election in Cerritos,” Kappe said. “I was in every precinct going door to door and my campaign cost under $10,000.”

Santa Clarita, one of the county’s newest cities, held its first City Council elections since being incorporated in 1987. Two of the three incumbents appeared headed for relection.

Residents voted for cityhood in 1987, they said, largely because they were tired of fighting an unresponsive, pro-growth Los Angeles County government.

Now, angry residents’ groups blame the council for the thousands of new houses and apartments that have continued to sprout throughout the city. The incumbents countered they were unfairly targeted for problems that Santa Clarita inherited from the county.

In Hidden Hills, an affluent San Fernando Valley suburb where the average home costs $840,000, an otherwise uninspired election was spiced up by a controversy surrounding a proposal to build 48 apartments for low-income seniors.

All three incumbents supported the housing development. Incomplete results showed the incumbents trailing challengers Susan Norris Porcaro, Howard Klein and David G. Stanley, who were critical of the city’s handling of the project.

In Carson, allegations of sexual harassment dogged the reelection campaign of Councilman John Anderson in Carson. Anderson called the claims, filed by two city employees, “totally untrue” and said they were encouraged by his political opponents.

Carson Mayor Mike Mitoma backed Anderson, saying he would resign if Anderson loses and the balance of power of the City Council shifts to their opponents.

With more than half the votes counted, Anderson was losing his council seat.

Change was in the air even in La Puente, where three veteran councilmen were seeking reelection--two vying for their seventh four-year terms. No challenger had defeated an incumbent councilman in La Puente since 1968.

On Tuesday, for the first time in La Puente history three incumbents were swept from office. The winners were Manuel J. Garcia, Edward L. Chavez and Louis R. Perez.

“Its time for the changing of the guard,” Manuel Garcia said. “I think that the people sense that.”

And in Irwindale, where a failed Raiders bid clouded the City Council race, a man who sued the city in a 1987 attempt to stop the stadium deal was elected to the council Tuesday.

Fred Barbosa, whose lawsuit resulted in a court injunction barring Irwindale from negotiating with the Raiders for more than a year, replaced incumbent Joseph Breceda. Two other incumbents, Patricio Miranda and Robert Diaz, were reelected.

Barbosa, who is most known as the man who held the Raiders deal hostage for a year, campaigned on a platform that included criticism of the council’s efforts to lure the football team. One of his first priorities, he said, would be to recover the $10 million in good-faith money Irwindale surrendered to Raiders’ owner Al Davis.

Times staff writers Gabe Fuentes, Michele Fuetsch, David Haldane, Rick Holguin, Tina Griego, Jesse Katz, Barbara Koh, Steve Padilla, George Stein and Jocelyn Stewart contributed to this story.