LOCAL ELECTIONS / MAYOR OF ANAHEIM : After a Close Election in 1988, Pickler, Hunter Are Vying Again : Challenger: In his third try for the top job, Irv Pickler says his cooperative style, not the incumbent’s flamboyance, is what his city needs now.

It cost Irv Pickler a $5 fine and a lot of ribbing, but it was worth it.

There was his face, beaming up off a red, white and blue brochure, next to the orange juice and French toast at each place setting for the Greater Anaheim Kiwanis Club meeting. Just 10 hours earlier, Pickler had been handing out the same brochure at a senior citizens retirement home, after a candidates’ night.

At the breakfast, the city councilman shook dozens of hands, countered the good-natured jibes and happily paid the customary club-imposed $5 for promoting himself. But it was clear that this was not just another stop on the campaign trail for Pickler, as he makes his third try for the mayor’s seat in Anaheim.

The two-time Kiwanian of the Year has spent every Thursday morning with his fellow service club members for 25 years. His membership is just one entry on a long list of community and civic activities--ranging from his current eight-year stint on the Anaheim City Council to his appointments to county transportation and waste management boards--that Pickler cites among his qualifications for the city’s highest post.

It’s a telling indication of the difference between Pickler and his opponent, incumbent Mayor Fred Hunter. Hunter is flamboyant and charismatic, boasting of his drug-fighting corps called “Hunter’s Brigade” and referring to himself in the third person as he takes personal credit for the new buildings going up downtown or for the addition of more officers to the Police Department.

By contrast, Pickler is plain-spoken and unassuming. Ask him about a problem Anaheim is facing--worsening traffic, for instance, or a proposal to build a jail or a dump in the hills--and he’ll tell you of some regionwide board he serves on that is tackling that dilemma. He’ll speak of pulling together as a team with the rest of the council to solve a problem, or of working with county agencies to address the bigger issues. If Pickler does any boasting, it most likely will be about his latest grandchild, his eighth, born last month.

“I’m a people person,” says Pickler, 69, a father of five who retired from the printing business in 1981. “I get involved in the community. I’m a doer.”

At stake in the election is the top post in a city of 247,000 that is the hub of the county’s tourist and convention industry, home to two major league baseball and football teams (with hockey and basketball teams perhaps on the way) and known worldwide for its most famous resident, Mickey Mouse. While the mayor has only one vote on the five-member City Council--in fact, both Pickler and Hunter are running to keep their council seats, in addition to vying for mayor--the top vote-getter carries extra responsibilities.

“The mayor who represents a city this size, which has 20 million tourists, that person is the official spokesman. Whether it is ceremonial or more, that man represents the city by his dignity, his presence, his charisma,” said Councilman William D. Ehrle, a political ally of Hunter.

“I see a distinct difference (between Pickler and Hunter),” Ehrle said. “Fred is a very charismatic person. He has a positive presence. Irv is an individual who has a presence of, well, what he is--a retired individual.

“Under Fred Hunter, it’s been leadership. Under Irv Pickler, it is status quo.”

Councilwoman Miriam Kaywood, an ally of Pickler’s who is running for reelection herself, sees a different contrast between the two mayoral candidates.

“One is a talker. One is a worker,” she said. “Irv has done the performance. He’s done the work. He works cooperatively. He does not say, ‘I, I, I.’ He doesn’t take credit for things he does. Fred takes credit for things he doesn’t do.”

Pickler says he is running because “I don’t like the current direction we’re going. I think I can bring us together as a team. We all want more police, firefighters, paramedics, traffic coordination and to get rid of drugs.” Hunter has claimed personal responsibility for turning the downtown around, Pickler said, “but that’s a lot of bull. We’ve all been working at it together, through the years.”

What’s more, Pickler says, because he is retired, he can be a full-time mayor.

“I have no desires to go on to higher office,” he said. “I don’t like the idea of using this city as a steppingstone.”

A former Orange County planning commissioner and Anaheim Union High School District trustee, Pickler says his service on a vast array of commissions, boards and associations has made him a walking encyclopedia on Anaheim. “After 34 years here, I even know all the back roads and shortcuts,” he said one day recently as he steered his lead-gray El Dorado Cadillac (license plate “MR PICK7”--his nickname plus his lucky number) along some back streets after leaving his storefront campaign office.

In addition to their clashing styles, Pickler and Hunter also differ on a number of Anaheim issues.

Hunter is an ardent supporter of Anaheim’s efforts to build a $100-million sports arena, in the hope that professional basketball and hockey teams will locate there.

Pickler is staunchly opposed to spending any city money on the venture. Originally, he said, the idea was that the city would donate the land, and a private developer would do the rest.

“I had no problem with that. But that’s all changed now. We’re giving away the store,” he said in a recent interview. Now, he says, the city has obligated itself to spend up to $50 million for the construction of the arena, including the underwriting of $2.5 million a year if the city does not sign a professional basketball team to play there. (A city official says Pickler’s figure is on the high side.)

“At least we had the Angels and the Rams signed on when we obligated ourselves for the stadium,” he said. Pickler is particularly distressed that the city is devoting one cent of the 11-cent hotel tax it collects from the substantial tourist trade to the arena project. (The one cent, which amounts to about $2.8 million a year, will be spent on the city’s tourist area, not just the arena, according to a city official.)

The hotel tax money goes into the city’s general fund and can be spent on anything the city needs, Pickler argued.

“I’m a sports nut, but let’s talk about priorities,” Pickler said. “Fred keeps talking about fighting drugs and helping the neighborhoods. Well, let’s put the dollars there.” The city has pressing financial needs as the country heads into a recession, he said, pointing out that Anaheim recently hired 18 additional police officers, “and we don’t know where we’re going to get the money to pay for them next year.”

Both Pickler and Hunter oppose the construction of a jail or a dump in the Gypsum Canyon area near Anaheim Hills. But Pickler’s pro-development leanings concern some residents in that area.

Pat Pepper, chairman of the Anaheim Hills Citizens Coalition, said he personally is supporting Hunter because “he has been supportive of the Hills and Irv Pickler has not.” Pickler has been slow to persuade on a number of projects that have united Anaheim Hills residents, while “Fred is more sympathetic, maybe because he lives out here,” Pepper said.

Pickler said some people in the hills don’t like the idea of more development in their area, but he is receptive to the idea of developing Gypsum and Coal canyons.

“By having beautiful homes out there, we’ll keep the jail and dump out,” he said. “We’ve got to take the lesser of two evils.” The traffic generated by the future development will be manageable because the Eastern-Foothill tollways will be constructed by then and the Riverside Freeway will have been widened, Pickler said.

“Some people say any growth is bad, it brings more congestion. But if someone says don’t build anything else, I guess we can’t have any more kids. You can’t just close the gates.”

The built-out flatlands of Anaheim also have their controversies. Hunter has the support of mobile home park renters, who have submitted petitions to put the issue of rent control on the ballot. Pickler is backed by many park owners and is an ardent foe of rent control.

“It stymies the city, and I don’t think we need it,” he said. Most rents appear to be reasonable, he said. “If we start with rent control there, I think it will spread, and then development shies away. . . . We have a vibrant city, and we will stifle that if we bring in rent control.”

Pickler does not have widespread support among the Latino community, which makes up 22% of Anaheim’s population, said longtime resident Amin David, president of Los Amigos, a countywide Latino association. Pickler lost favor with the community when he supported a “repressive ordinance” that restricted the hours that food vendors could park in the streets, selling their produce to residents, David said. “It was repressive against only one group, the Latinos,” he said. After Hunter joined the council, the restrictions were eased, David said.

Pickler “has not made any effort at all” to address concerns of Latinos, David said. By contrast, he said, “we are very supportive of Mayor Fred Hunter.”

Pickler countered that he has a lot of support among Latinos and stands by his position on the food vendors. “We had a lot of complaints. There were concerns about health standards. It was unsafe with children around. . . . I just don’t think it was beneficial to the neighborhoods,” he said, adding, “I’d like to see how they’d like it (food vendors) in the Anaheim Hills area,” referring to the upscale area where Hunter lives.

The city employee unions have thrown their support to Hunter--a development that led Pickler to make an uncharacteristically stinging attack on the Anaheim Firefighters Assn. last week. He charged that the union, in the midst of contract negotiations, is campaigning for Hunter and council candidate Bob Simpson in an effort to stack the council and get more money. Pickler cited a union newsletter that urged members to campaign for Hunter and Simpson if they wanted a better contract.

Firefighters’ spokesman Dennis Ivison has denied the charge that the union is mixing politics with the negotiations, adding that the union tried to reach an agreement on the contract before the election, and the disagreement is over the length of contract, not money.

Pickler’s charge against the firefighters last week may be a reflection of his campaign management by Harvey Englander, known for his hardball tactics. Englander got Hunter’s camp upset earlier this year when he conducted a 30-question poll for Pickler, asking one question that referred to Hunter having a drinking problem.

Pickler said he does not plan to use the responses to that question in his campaign. “I wasn’t going to play it up,” Pickler said. “I just didn’t want to take the chance that I wasn’t ready for him (Hunter) if he takes the campaign to that level.”

ANAHEIM BY THE NUMBERS Population: 247,800 Ethnic makeup: 67% white, 22% Latino, 1% black, 10% other Major employers: Disneyland: 7,000 Rockwell International (defense electronics): 7,000 City of Anaheim: 3,228 Kaiser Permanente Medical Center: 2,000 Kwikset Corp. (locks and household goods): 2,000 City budget for 1990-91: $531,857,210 (including the city-owned public utility--electric and water--budget of $166,816,141) City Council: Five members, elected at large Council salaries: Mayor, $800 a month; council members, $400 a month Source: City of Anaheim and National Planning Data Corp.