LOCAL ELECTIONS : New Era Seen as Lagerquist Wins Vacant Council Seat in Lawndale : Voting: Electorate altered by influx of newcomers favors pro-business candidate over longtime residents with high name recognition.

Aerospace engineer Norm Lagerquist swept into a vacant seat on the Lawndale City Council in an election Tuesday that may signal a realignment of city politics in favor of business interests and also appears to reflect a shift in the city’s demographics.

Lagerquist, 35, a relative newcomer to Lawndale politics who campaigned on a pro-business platform, was elected to the council with 40% of the vote, easily defeating three opponents, including two longtime residents with high name recognition.

Development consultant Gary McDonald, 30, placed second with 24% of the vote, followed by purchasing agent Ron Maxwell, 27, who won 22%, and machine shop owner Bob Cerny, 72, with 13%.

Lagerquist’s victory was not entirely a surprise. Vice president of a local homeowners group, he campaigned vigorously and amassed an impressive array of endorsements, including those of council members Carol Norman and Bill Johnson and Assemblyman Richard E. Floyd (D-Carson).

Although most of the candidates chose to spend election night quietly with a small group of campaign workers, Lagerquist and about 40 supporters gathered for a party at the home of Lawndale school Trustee Bob Kruse. Confident of victory, they celebrated with champagne and cake after Lagerquist’s lead topped 200 votes around 1 a.m.

Lawndale recreation coordinator Linda Zirpoli said a majority of the city’s 50-odd employees supported Lagerquist because he is a fresh face and because they believe he will focus on the issues and bring more professionalism to city politics.

“People are tired of hearing, ‘We’re broke, we’re in the hole, the city’s mismanaged,’ ” Zirpoli said. “I think everyone in Lawndale just wants a change.”

Lawndale, which has long been a working-class community with a large base of elderly, long-term residents, has recently seen an influx of younger couples, many of them employed in the aerospace industry. For the newcomers, Lawndale’s affordable housing has made it an attractive alternative to the beach cities.

The radical shift toward a younger, white-collar population “is providing a different electorate as well as a different base from which to draw candidates,” Lagerquist said.

Lagerquist’s top challenger, McDonald, lost a bid for a council seat in April by seven votes. He was endorsed by Mayor Harold Hofmann and Councilman Larry Rudolph. A lifelong resident of Lawndale, McDonald initially was considered to have an advantage because he is a “local boy.”

Although McDonald frequently claimed to have saved the city money and to be the strongest anti-gang candidate, some supporters said he was relying too heavily on name recognition and his past accomplishments as a civic watchdog and former planning commissioner.

McDonald’s campaign took a decisive turn for the worse last weekend when the Southern California Caucus, a regional political group that supports businesses, issued a mailer raising questions about his personal scruples.

The mailer told voters that McDonald had two outstanding state tax liens pending against him as well as an arrest warrant for failing to appear in court on a traffic citation.

Although both allegations were confirmed by state authorities, McDonald said that the tax liens were a mistake and that he was unaware of the arrest warrant. He called the mailer “the worst example of mudslinging and dirty politics” he had ever seen and blamed it for his poor showing at the polls.

But even McDonald’s staunchest supporters conceded that the mailer wasn’t solely responsible for his defeat.

“I think it was a combination of the hit pieces against Gary and obviously that Norm (Lagerquist) presented his case out there better than Gary did,” Rudolph said. “When you get that much of the vote, you must be telling people things they want to hear.”

According to unofficial tallies with 100% of the precincts reporting, Lagerquist received 1,357 votes, McDonald 837, Maxwell 746 and Cerny 449.

Lagerquist will serve for 17 months, the remainder of the term Hofmann vacated when he was elected mayor in April.

The showing by Maxwell and Cerny, who both ran as unaligned independents and who together earned nearly as many votes as Lagerquist, was perceived by some to be a rejection of the bloc voting and partisan politics that have marked the city in recent years.

“If (Lagerquist) gets in, it’ll be 3-2 (votes on the council) all the time, with him and Johnson and Norman” voting together, Cerny predicted.

But Lagerquist insists he doesn’t owe anything to his supporters.

“I’m there to make good decisions, and I think the reason (council members Norman and Johnson) supported me is not because I’m committed to vote with them on any issue but because of the way I make decisions and also because of my values,” Lagerquist said.

Nevertheless, Lagerquist acknowledges that improving relations between the city and its fledgling business community is at the top of his agenda. He said he is likely to vote with Johnson and Norman to restore funding to the Lawndale Chamber of Commerce and to remove parking restrictions along some residential streets near Hawthorne Boulevard, the city’s main commercial thoroughfare.

Although Rudolph and Hofmann backed McDonald, both said they expect to be able to work well with Lagerquist.

“My personal feeling is that after (Lagerquist) makes his political paybacks, we’ll eventually get back on track,” Rudolph said. “I don’t think I’ll have any problems working with him after that.”

FINAL RETURNS: B6

LOCAL RESULTS Inglewood

Mayor

100% Precincts Reporting Votes % Edward Vincent* 9,219 62 Anthony Scardenzan 3,153 21 Virgle P. Benson 1,867 13 Carl L. McGill 408 3 John F. Murphy 326 2

Lawndale

City Council

(Special Election)

100% Precincts Reporting Votes % Norm Lagerquist 1,357 40 Gary McDonald 837 25 Ron Maxwell 746 22 Robert E. Cerny 449 13

Local Measures

Hawthorne

D--Property Tax to Increase Police Services

Requires Two-Thirds Vote

100% Precincts Reporting Votes % Yes 5,766 59 No 4,068 41

Carson

F--Continue Use and Sale of Fireworks

100% Precincts Reporting Votes % Yes 7,521 50 No 7,666 51

Elected candidates and winning side of measures are in bold type.

An asterisk (*) denotes incumbent candidate.

Percentages are rounded to the nearest whole number.