Lynch Struggles Against Hahn : Assessor: Newcomer with a famous political name inches ahead of incumbent in early morning returns.

Los Angeles County Assessor John J. Lynch was struggling Tuesday to fend off a strong challenge from Kenneth P. Hahn, a political newcomer who benefited from a famous name in his bid to seize the office from his boss.

Hahn, who is no relation to County Supervisor Kenneth F. Hahn, was steadily inching ahead of Lynch in returns being reported in the early morning hours today.

But Lynch, who stressed his support from Supervisor Hahn in his campaign for reelection, remained optimistic.

“We knew it was going to be a long night,” he said from his private room at the Universal City Hilton, where about 25 supporters sat quietly watching returns on a small television.

The atmosphere was more festive at the Hahn party at the Biltmore Hotel where about 100 supporters chanted “We’re No. 1. We’re No. 1” when results showed Hahn pulling ahead of Lynch.

One of Hahn’s co-workers in the assessor’s office walked up to Hahn and said jokingly, “Please be nice to me, boss.”

“It looks like this will take a long time but everything is moving in the right direction,” said Hahn, 51, a deputy assessor. “I feel very optimistic.”

Hahn, waiting for returns, acknowledged that he considered his good fortune a fluke when he forced Lynch into a runoff. But after a number of city officials endorsed him, “I said, ‘My God, I have a chance.’

“I find myself a little surprised,” Hahn said, “because I had no ambition to be a politician. I still don’t want to be a politician. I just want to be a good administrator.”

Hahn, educated as a biologist, has been with the assessor’s office for 10 years, after careers as a chemist and a social worker. He has been working as a $42,000-a-year appraiser specialist. The post is slightly senior to the deputy assessor position that Lynch held before his 1986 election.

After a strong showing in the primary, money and support began pouring into Hahn’s campaign. So did endorsements from former Assessor Alexander Pope, County Supervisor Ed Edelman and Los Angeles Mayor Tom Bradley, who earlier had supported Lynch.

Lynch, 53, carried into the election a reputation as a hot-tempered personality who was accused of bullying employees and failing to get tax bills out on time.

Lynch spent 14 years as a worker in the lower ranks of the assessor’s office before his election in 1986. He used his ties as a longtime Republican volunteer in the San Fernando Valley and an endorsement from the late tax fighter Howard Jarvis to win the job vacated by Pope.

During his administration, Lynch made headlines by kicking county auditors out of his office and being accused of assaulting an employee during a heated argument over the worker’s union activities.

A recent management audit of the office found millions of dollars in billing backlogs. Lynch blamed the backlogs on a computer system inherited from his predecessor.

Lynch’s campaign was devoted to getting the word out that his opponent was no relation to the supervisor, no easy task in the low-visibility race.

“I’m not up against a name,” Lynch said Tuesday night. “I’m up against an institution.” But complicating matters were a couple of mailers sent out in the final days before the election.

One was a Hahn mailer dispatched to homes in the final days before the election picturing Lynch with a smiling Supervisor Hahn and the supervisor’s son, City Atty. James Kenneth Hahn. The other was a Lynch mailer touting Bradley’s endorsement of the incumbent. However, Bradley withdrew his endorsement of Lynch.

The Los Angeles County assessor, who will earn $130,896 a year when the new four-year term begins Dec. 3, oversees the largest single property-taxing jurisdiction, in land value, in the United States. The assessor oversees an office with 1,600 employees who determine the tax bills for 2.2 million commercial and residential properties.

The race took on greater importance this year because of redistricting, which the Board of Supervisors is scheduled to take up next year regardless of the outcome of the pending voting rights litigation.

Should the board fall short of the four votes required for approval of a new plan, the issue will be decided by a committee made up of the assessor, the district attorney and the sheriff. If elected, Hahn would tip the balance of the committee from Republican to Democrat.