LOCAL ELECTIONS / SOUTHEAST CITY COUNCILS : 24 Newcomers Gain Office in 16 Cities, as 10 Reelection Bids Fail

Voters changed the makeup of city councils throughout Southeast Los Angeles County, ousting 10 incumbents and selecting 24 newcomers Tuesday in 16 cities.

Political representation for Latinos, slow growth and campaign spending were some of the issues that contributed to the defeat of the incumbents.

South Gate will have three new members on its five-person council. The only incumbent who sought reelection was defeated.

Incumbents also lost in Huntington Park, Whittier, Hawaiian Gardens, Pico Rivera, Cudahy, Bellflower, Norwalk, Signal Hill and Paramount.

Only Commerce voters returned all incumbents to office in a contested race. Elections were previously canceled in La Mirada, Maywood and Santa Fe Springs after no candidates emerged to challenge incumbents for council and other elected offices.

The only ballot measure in the Southeast area was defeated. La Habra Heights voters rejected a measure that would have levied a fee to provide 24-hour paramedic service in the city.

Voter turnout was higher than usual in some cities. In Huntington Park, for example, 36% of the voters cast ballots, and Cerritos recorded a 33% turnout. In Lakewood, however, just 11% of the registered voters cast ballots.

Summaries of key election developments, by city:

Artesia

Veteran incumbent Jim Van Horn was returned to office while Mary Alyce Soares, a savings and loan official who was born in Artesia, was elected for the first time to the five-member City Council.

Bell

Voters sent City Hall mixed messages by reelecting two incumbents who say they have run the city well, and electing the candidate who criticized the slow pace of redevelopment, an outdated sewer system and the city’s financial condition.

George Bass, 59, a retired fire chief who has criticized Bell leaders for failing to revitalize the downtown, defeated Allen Caddy for one of the three spots on the City Council. Caddy was running on the same slate as incumbent Rolf Janssen, 34, who will begin his second term, and Jay Price, 75, who will begin his ninth consecutive term in office.

Bell Gardens

Incumbent Ronald Bird and federal employee Douglas O’Leary won an election in which one of the key issues was whether the all-Anglo City Council had been representing the Latino population, which has mushroomed the past few years and now makes up 75% of Bell Gardens’ population.

Bird, 46, who was elected to his second term, and O’Leary, who will begin his first, successfully fended off a challenge from Latino candidates Josefina Macias and Rosa Hernandez, who were attempting to become the first Latinos to sit on the council. O’Leary took the seat of Mayor Roger McComas, who retired after 22 years in office.

O’Leary said the results show that a council member does not necessarily have to be Latino to represent Latinos. Both he and Bird said they represent the entire community.

Macias and Hernandez said Latinos are making their presence felt now and that this election helped them realize their potential.

Bellflower

The calm, quiet campaign belied a close race with a nail-biting vote count that at one point had all six candidates virtually even. In the end, the three open City Council seats were won by incumbent John Ansdell, who will be serving his third term; incumbent Bill Pendleton, elected to his second term, and newcomer Bob Stone, 43, an insurance salesman. Stone unseated Ken Cleveland, who has served on the council twice.

Stone attributed his victory in part to the strong support of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, which has been trying to unionize some Bellflower employees for the last few months.

Cerritos

Candidate Charles J. Kim’s high-spending campaign turned the election for three City Council seats into a late-night cliffhanger.

Kim, who raised $104,000 for his campaign, more than triple what any other candidate has raised in a Cerritos election, narrowly missed winning one of the seats in an election that featured a significant increase in absentee balloting. Kim received more votes in absentee balloting (1,135) than in the polling booth (802). A total of 2,260 absentee ballots were cast, three times the number in the 1988 council election, city officials said.

Incumbent Councilwoman Ann Joynt, a former teacher, received the most votes in the 13-way race. Her political ally, Planning Commissioner Sherman Kappe, came in second. Third place went to John Crawley, president of the Optimist Club and a senior financial analyst for the Atlantic Richfield Corp.

Kim’s campaign left a bitter taste in the mouths of some locals, who had been highly critical of his spending and called him a carpetbagger because he moved to town only last year. His elaborate campaign, which featured a computerized voter registration and absentee ballot drive, cost about $54 for every vote that he received.

Cudahy

The accusations and finger-pointing in this election continued even after the results were announced. Incumbent Joseph Graffio, and candidates Alex Rodriguez and Jack Cluck handily won the three seats on the five-member Cudahy City Council, but most of the other candidates said they are planning to challenge the election.

“This was the filthiest race I’ve ever seen,” said incumbent Bill Colon, who was unseated after four years on the council. “There is something wrong somewhere.”

Colon said some residents were intimidated by the winning candidates’ campaigning illegally at one of the city’s polling places. Candidate Valerie Hansen said the race had been “stolen.” Graffio, Cluck and Rodriguez denied the charges, saying they had run a clean races.

Rodriguez, 63, a retired refrigeration engineer, and Cluck, 70, president of a local senior citizens organization, were elected to their first terms. One of the three council seats on the ballot was vacated earlier this year when Tom Thurman resigned.

Hawaiian Gardens

Incumbent Kathleen Navejas was reelected by a solid margin, but incumbent Donald Schultze was defeated in the races for two City Council seats in Hawaiian Gardens.

However, just one vote separated two candidates vying for Schultze’s seat, with about 20 questionable ballots yet to be counted. Former Councilman Richard Vineyard, who lost his seat two years ago by three votes, held the one-vote lead over Domenic Ruggeri, a Navejas ally.

Huntington Park

Latino candidates won City Council seats for the first time in this city of 59,000, which is 90% Latino.

Raul Perez, who had run unsuccessfully five times before, was the top vote-getter, followed by incumbent William P. Cunningham and upstart candidate Luis Hernandez. Councilman Jim Roberts, who had served on the council since 1970, lost his seat after finishing 20 votes behind Hernandez.

Perez and Hernandez used nearly opposite campaign strategies to win office. Perez billed himself as a cooperative team player, while Hernandez, always the firebrand, lashed out at the incumbents during a candidates forum and with mailers.

Political representation for Latinos was the key theme of Perez’s campaign. The 47-year-old loan officer called for more neighborhood meetings and overall community involvement to deal with the city’s crime problem, including gang crime. He stressed his longtime involvement in civic groups and his dedication to the city--demonstrated by his 12-year quest for a council seat. He refrained from strongly criticizing the incumbents.

Hernandez, a 29-year-old financial consultant, downplayed the issue of Latino representation throughout the race. He attacked the incumbents for the city’s financial problems, which forced the layoffs of 25 municipal employees last October.

Cunningham and Roberts attacked Hernandez. Some of the 14 mailers they put out accused Hernandez of lying about his background and alleged that he did not live in the city. Hernandez, who was living in nearby Walnut Park, said he now lives with his sister in

Huntington Park.

But they spared Perez. “(Perez) had the Hispanic vote and the Anglo vote,” said Cunningham, 50, who ran a joint campaign with Roberts. “If a white person asked me who to vote for the third seat, I told them vote for Perez.”

A Latino candidate was virtually assured of winning at least one seat when longtime Councilman Herbert A. Hennes decided to retire for personal reasons.

Lakewood

Voters gave Larry Van Nostran a fifth term on the City Council and elected Joseph Esquival to replace Councilwoman Jacqueline Rynerson, whose retirement next week will make the council an all-male body for the first time in 12 years.

Esquival, 57, is a quality control engineer for American National Can Co. in Carson. He has been a city parks and recreation commissioner for 18 years.

La Habra Heights

Voters soundly defeated a proposal to increase annual fire fees from $200 to $500 per parcel, which would have provided money for around-the-clock paramedic service. They also elected two new City Council candidates who had been endorsed by the city’s retiring mayor.

The winners are Richard Newbre, 55, a real estate lawyer, and Diane Kane, 42, an environmental planner for the state Department of Transportation.

Norwalk

Norwalk Parks and Recreation Commission member Robert J. Arthur, 41, upset two-term Councilman Marcial (Rod) Rodriguez in a relatively quiet campaign. Mayor Grace F. Napolitano received the most votes, followed by Arthur and Councilman Luigi A. Vernola.

The four major candidates ran courteous campaigns, focusing on their accomplishments and avoiding criticism of their opponents. But Rodriguez had been criticized by the weekly News Tribune for, among other things, using an off-duty sheriff’s car to carry him to and from Norwalk Dodger Day last year.

Paramount

Mayor Henry Harkema, 78, lost his bid for reelection to the five-member Paramount City Council. Voters returned Councilman Manuel E. Guillen to office and selected two newcomers, Elvira (Vera) Amaro and Allen (Joe) Parker. Harkema, Guillen and Parker were endorsed by Councilman Charles R. Weldon, who decided not to run for a fourth term.

Amaro, a teaching assistant for the Paramount Unified School District, has served on the city Water Commission, an appointed position, for the past six years.

Parker, 51, was also making his first try for an elected office. He was appointed to the Planning Commission more than a year ago.

Pico Rivera

City Councilmen John G. Chavez and Albert Natividad won reelection in Pico Rivera, while challenger Richard L. Mercado Sr., 55, a city building inspector, overtook incumbent Gilbert De La Rosa, an eight-year City Council veteran. The victory was Mercado’s first in five efforts.

Signal Hill

Incumbent Councilwoman Sara Dodds Hanlon lost her seat to Carol A. Churchill, chairwoman of the Planning Commission. Signal Hill voters reelected Mayor Gerard Goedhart for the second open council seat.

Churchill, a lawyer, credited her victory to her “strong position” against a large development proposed for the city’s hilltop.

South Gate

Voters elected three new City Council members, signaling a change in the balance of power on the five-member South Gate council.

Mayor Herbert W. Cranton, 66, the only incumbent seeking reelection, was defeated. The three victorious newcomers--Mary Ann Buckles, 50; Larry R. Leonard, 47, and Johnny Ramirez, 35--were endorsed by Councilmen Robert A. Philipp and Gregory Slaughter, who frequently found themselves on the losing side of key votes by the five-member council. Philipp and Slaughter were not up for reelection.

Whittier

Two City Council candidates who campaigned for slow growth were elected in one of the most spirited campaigns in decades. An incumbent who had defended Whittier’s recent development policies was defeated.

“(The vote) is a mandate against the policies of the old-boy network that has run this town,” said Helen McKenna Rahder, a teacher and local activist who led the field of 10 candidates in the hotly contested race. “It means that the preservationists, the slow-growthers and the younger environmentally aware vote has come through. This is a statement for quality of life and quality development standards.”

Bob Henderson, an insurance broker and former councilman, won the second council seat.

Rahder and Henderson outdistanced incumbent Gene Chandler, 66, who was seeking his third term on the council.

Times staff writers Michele Fuetsch, Tina Griego, David Haldane, Lee Harris, Rick Holguin and Roxana Kopetman contributed to this report.