Latino Inquiry on Voting Surprises Burbank District : Elections: Lawyers who helped fight for a new supervisorial region have put education officials on notice. But board members deny that there is bias.

Audrey P. Hanson was incredulous.

“I just can’t believe it!” exclaimed the 10-year veteran of the Burbank Unified School District board. “I can’t figure out why Burbank is being singled out. Something like this is extremely divisive, especially in a small community.”

Hanson was reacting to reports that the school board is one of dozens of governing bodies statewide being targeted by voting rights attorneys who claim that election rules prevent Latinos from winning public office.

The attorneys are the same ones involved in the recently successful legal fight that created a new Latino supervisorial district for Los Angeles County. Fresh from that victory, the lawyers said they are now challenging at least 43 cities in Southern California--each with significant Latino populations that have little or no representation on city councils or other governing bodies.

“We want them to know that they’re under consideration,” said Richard Martinez, executive director of the Southwest Voter Registration/Education Project. “But the sequence that will determine when Burbank’s case will come up hasn’t been set yet.”

Among the aspects being looked at are voting patterns in the targeted communities. The attorneys said they hoped to demonstrate to city councils and school boards that the system of electing candidates at-large, rather than by district, dilutes Latino voting strength.

Board members, district administrators and Burbank city officials said last week that they were bewildered by the suspicions surrounding the district, especially since specific allegations have yet to be made. They were also wondering why the school district was targeted instead of the five-member City Council, which also does not have minority representation.

Officials said they could only recall one Latino member who has served in recent years--Tesia Velasquez, who is a teacher at Ralph Waldo Emerson Elementary School in Burbank. They said they could only think of one other Latino resident who had run for the school board.

“I can’t imagine what the problems could be,” said Vivian Kaufman, a veteran on the board.

“I’ve lived in Burbank for more than 35 years, and there have never been any problems,” she said. “There haven’t been that many minority candidates filing for office. If there were, they would probably have a very good chance of being elected.”

Board members have said the district has gone out of its way in past years to recruit minority involvement on committees and parent groups. They said they wanted the groups to reflect the minority makeup of the 12,058-student population, which is 53.2% white and 36.8% Latino.

“In order to do our best for all our students, we have to pull together,” Hanson said. “We can’t afford to have discrimination. Anyone who has their own agenda is going to run into problems. We have always made sure that the needs of all our students, no matter what their cultural background, are addressed.”

Another board veteran, William Abbey, offered this explanation: “I think they just lumped us in with other school boards whose members are elected on an at-large basis, not by districts. That’s the only thing I can think of.”

The charges arrived in the midst of a campaign for two school board seats in Burbank’s municipal election Feb. 26. None of the eight candidates running for office are Latinos or other minorities.

Voting rights attorneys who suspect the district of having discriminatory voting practices say they have not completed their investigation.

“We’re still analyzing whether it is an appropriate case for litigation,” said Joaquin G. Avila, widely spoken of as California’s top voting rights attorney. “It will take a while to do that.”

Avila had said earlier that more than 100 cities and other jurisdictions have enough Latino residents and a history of low representation to warrant lawsuits under the Voting Rights Act. Burbank met the criteria, he said.

Martinez added that even though a school district and a city council may be in the same jurisdiction, one may be sued for its election rules and not the other. “The voting histories and patterns of one may not be reflected as clearly as the other,” he said.

The present ethnic breakdown of Burbank according to the 1990 U. S. Census will not be available for a few months. Census figures for 1980 showed Hispanic residents making up 16.3% of the city’s population of 84,625. The present population is 93,643, according to figures released last week.

Among other governing bodies being investigated are the city councils of Bell Gardens and Compton; the Hawthorne and Oxnard elementary school districts; the Fullerton, Pomona and Corona-Norco unified school districts, and the Fullerton Joint Union High School District.

Latino leaders said that by correcting election rules, they can correct a historical political inequity. Latinos constitute 25% of the state’s population but hold fewer than 35 of the top elective offices in the state.

City Councilwoman Mary Lou Howard, one of Burbank’s most prominent liberal politicians, said she was surprised that the school district had been targeted.

“I’ve never heard any complaints in the past,” she said. “I have never been aware of any form of discrimination, and I would be very upset if I knew something like that was going on. I can’t imagine the school board even condoning something like that.”