Cawdrey Challenges Term Limit as 8 Others File for 2 Redondo Council Seats : Campaign: Two-term incumbent says he’s running despite the city’s refusal to let him file for reelection.

Redondo Beach City Councilman Ron Cawdrey, who is taking on the city’s two-term council limit by seeking reelection in March, was confronted with a host of challengers Thursday as five candidates filed for his District 5 seat.

Cawdrey was turned away when he tried to file his nominating papers at the close of the filing period Thursday. The rejection was expected, since City Clerk John L. Oliver had warned him in a letter earlier this month that he could not accept the nominating papers of ineligible candidates.

However, Cawdrey, a veteran of eight years on the council, said he will campaign nonetheless and will seek a court order mandating that his name be placed on the ballot.

“I wouldn’t even consider dropping out,” Cawdrey said in an interview Thursday. “They’ve now pushed it to the point where I’ve got to find out who’s right and who’s wrong.”

The contestants for Cawdrey’s North Redondo Beach seat include Bruce Unruh, who four years ago set a record for campaign spending in the city, and two local activists who have already won endorsements from other elected officials.

For the other open seat on the ballot, Councilman Stevan Colin, who represents north-central District 3, will face two opponents in the March 5 election: E. Gregory Cox, a resource conservation commissioner who led a drive to prevent relocation of two historic homes in Perry Allison Park, and Jack Tyler, who lists his occupation as “tax-cutting crusader.”

Two of the city’s most senior incumbents, four-term Treasurer Alice E. DeLong and two-term City Clerk Oliver, will run unopposed.

Cawdrey has drawn the ire of several council members and Mayor Brad Parton for refusing to abide by the City Charter, which voters amended 15 years ago to restrict the mayor and council to two four-year terms. Cawdrey has charged that the restriction is unconstitutional.

Earlier this year, he proposed a ballot measure that would allow voters to reconsider the limit. But when sufficient council support failed to materialize, he vowed to test the charter in court.

Cawdrey estimated that his legal crusade will cost about $10,000. About half of this amount has already been donated by local business people and political supporters, he said, adding that he has limited individual contributions to $500 each.

Among the donors, he said, are Gordon McCrae Jr., executive vice president of the Redondo Beach Marina; businessman Steve Shoemaker; and executives of Western Waste Industries, a local trash hauler supported by Cawdrey in its efforts to obtain an exclusive garbage collection contract in the city.

However, Cawdrey refused Thursday to release a full list of those who had donated money for his legal bills, despite being told by the state Fair Political Practices Commission that the donations are campaign contributions that must be publicly disclosed.

“These are legal funds,” the councilman said. “They don’t have anything to do with my campaign.”

Cawdrey said he will keep the contribution lists private until the FPPC forces him to disclose them.

The charter dispute aside, the 54-year-old Cawdrey faces stiff competition.

One challenger, 35-year-old businessman Michael Herman, is already being touted by Mayor Parton and is expected to win the mayor’s endorsement. Another, Public Improvement Commissioner Mary Rockwell, 36, is backed by two council members, Colin and Barbara J. Doerr.

A third, Unruh--son of the late state Treasurer Jesse M. Unruh--spent nearly $158,000 in his recent loss to incumbent City Treasurer DeLong.

And a fourth, marketing executive Roberleigh Richester, has been active on one of the district’s hottest issues--the problem of cut-through traffic on the overloaded residential streets near the TRW office park.

Also on the ballot is retired construction superintendent Joseph White, 63, who said he decided to run, in part, because the city’s term limit should be enforced.

“I’m not concerned, because I’ve done a good job,” said Cawdrey, referring to the challengers.

But his opponents took issue with that.

“I don’t think he has done his job for several years,” said Richester, 41. “I don’t know what makes him think the people in this area want him back.”

Richester, a 30-year resident of the city, said he decided to run after the council failed to follow the recommendations drawn up by the North Redondo Traffic Committee, on which Richester served. The committee spent more than two years devising a set of alternatives for controlling gridlock on residential streets.

“The socioeconomic climate in this district has changed dramatically,” he said. “The ‘thirtysomething’ group is settling in and buying homes here, and I don’t think (Cawdrey’s) taken that into consideration. I don’t think he’s considered anything but himself.”

Herman, a member of the citizens advisory committee on the city’s General Plan, also cited traffic as a key issue in the district, along with the fate of the former Aviation High School campus, which is slated to become a public park. A vice president for Bay Distributors, a Redondo Beach beer wholesaler, Herman is an eight-year resident of the city.

White, a 53-year resident and a former superintendent for Anastasi Construction Co., a local home builder, said he, too, would work to keep traffic under control. He noted that he has not served on any boards or commissions, but decided to run for council after retiring this year because “I feel it’s time to give something back to the city.”

Rockwell, a single parent and 12-year resident, cited child care, the construction of a new library and the completion of Aviation park as her priorities.

Unruh, meanwhile, touted his fiscal experience--he was his father’s campaign finance director--and his ties with the community as a 10-year resident and nine-year member of the Redondo Beach Lions Club. He added, however, that he plans to spend far less money on this campaign than he did four years ago.

“Last time, there seemed to be so much sensationalism that the money overwhelmed the message,” Unruh said. “This time around, I’m going door to door.”

In District 3, candidates’ priorities centered on the local parks and the pier, which is undergoing reconstruction after a disastrous series of fires and storms in 1988.

Incumbent Councilman Colin, a 33-year-old lawyer who was elected in 1988 to fill Marcia Martin’s unexpired term, noted that $25 million worth of claims are pending against the city, many of them resulting from the 1988 disasters. He said the city would benefit from his legal expertise in dealing with the litigation.

Cox, a 43-year-old salesman of X-ray equipment, stressed the importance of controlling spending on the new pier and the Aviation recreation complex.

And Tyler--a 29-year-old activist who has for years campaigned unsuccessfully to get the city to remove a 6-foot monolith bearing the Ten Commandments from the City Hall lawn--said he wants, among other things, to remove the police substation at the pier and have pier businesses pay for their own security.