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Court Rejects Cawdrey’s Appeal to Overturn Council Term Limit

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TIMES STAFF WRITER

A three-judge appellate panel has rejected Redondo Beach City Councilman Ron Cawdrey’s bid to have his name included on the city’s March 5 ballot.

Cawdrey had sought to have the city’s two-term limit on council members overturned and had asked the appellate court for an immediate ruling so he could take part in the election.

A Torrance Superior Court judge last week had upheld the limit, approved by voters in 1975. But, acting less than 72 hours after receiving Cawdrey’s appeal, the appellate judges declined to hear the case on an emergency basis. The panel made no comment on the merits of the case.

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Attorney Barry Fisher, who represented Cawdrey, said he may continue the battle to get Cawdrey’s name on the ballot by filing an emergency petition with the state Supreme Court. But he said he must act quickly because the election is less than a month away.

Barring a Supreme Court appeal, Fisher said, Cawdrey may continue to try to void the city’s term limit at the appellate court level, although that process would take too long to allow him to participate in the election next month.

“This matter isn’t moot, because Mr. Cawdrey is barred from the council for life under this limit, not just the next election, but the next one and the next,” Fisher said.

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Cawdrey said he has yet to decide whether to continue the legal fight.

“I like the work. I like helping people,” Cawdrey said of his time on the council. “I think I do a . . . good job, and I think I would do a better job than any of the other candidates. . . . But I don’t know what I’m going to do at this stage.”

Five candidates have filed to run for Cawdrey’s North Redondo District 5 seat.

Cawdrey was appointed to the council in 1982 to fill the unexpired term of Gene King, who had resigned. The following year, Cawdrey was elected to a four-year term. In 1985, he withstood a recall campaign led by community activists who opposed his backing of a plan to develop the defunct Aviation High School campus. He was reelected in 1987 to his current term, which expires next month.

Fisher said he was particularly bothered by city efforts to rush ahead with absentee voting so it could claim the election was under way, making the appeal moot.

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City Atty. Gordon Phillips said the city clerk “has had many requests for absentee ballots from people, including service people who are on their way to the Persian Gulf.”

If the city had failed to release the absentee ballots until the minimum 10 days before the election, Phillips said, “a great many people who would not have been in the city at that time would have been disenfranchised.”

But Fisher argued that the city could have prepared voting materials for everyone but the 6,000 voters in District 5.

“This question only affects one councilmanic district,” he said. “They rushed to get these (voting materials) out, and then they allowed people to immediately begin voting. That wasn’t necessary.”

Phillips said one absentee ballot has already been cast.

Fisher called “frivolous” a suggestion by Councilman Steve Colin at the council’s Tuesday meeting that the city should force Cawdrey to pay the city’s legal defense costs in the case. Those costs have not been totaled, but they are expected to exceed $20,000.

Phillips said his office reviews such action as soon as all cases are concluded, but he said he does not consider this case over.

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“I’m sure either side that wins would consult their lawyers to look into that when the time comes,” he said.

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