ELECTIONS / REDONDO BEACH : A Surprising Council Victory; Incumbents Retain School Posts : Education: The race is seen as a referendum on the district’s approval of controversial textbooks and on sex education programs.

Three Redondo Beach school board members were easily returned to office Tuesday, turning back three challengers in an election that was widely seen as a referendum on censoring school textbooks and sex education programs in the district.

Results showed that the incumbents, as a group, outpolled their challengers by a 2-1 margin. Reelected to four-year terms were Valerie Dombrowski, Bart Swanson and Sylvia Zellers.

Dombrowski, a 55-year-old retired lab technician, won a fourth term on the school board with 22.2% of the vote, the most of any candidates. Swanson, 40, director of Lawndale’s community safety program, won a second term with 20.2%. Sylvia Zellers, 52, who sells racetrack programs, won a third term with 19.7%.

Pat Safani, 37, a homemaker and part-time secretary in a medical office, led the challengers with 13% of the vote. She was followed by Melinda E. Stone, 36, a homemaker, with 12.7%, and Donna Carrico, 40, a chiropractor, with 12.2%.

The election followed one of the most spirited Redondo Beach school board campaigns in years and one in which incumbents and challengers generally agreed on many of the educational issues confronting the 4,274-student district.

Indeed, all six candidates favored cautious spending by the district, holding on to surplus properties in case enrollment continues to increase and creating a new K-12 district by incorporating Redondo Union High School into the school system. The high school is now part of the South Bay Union High School District.

But those areas of agreement were overshadowed by the fierce split over the district’s curricula and direction.

The incumbents, running as a slate, were criticized by the challengers for the district’s decision last year to continue using a series of controversial grade-school textbooks titled “Impressions.” The series, which includes stories of monsters and magic spells and excerpts from the works of Rudyard Kipling, Lewis Carroll and other prominent authors, was seen by some parents as immoral and frightening to children.

Last year, a group called Coalition of Concerned Parents unsuccessfully attempted to bar the books from Redondo schools. Two of the school board challengers--Safani and Stone--were members of that group and continued to argue, along with candidate Carrico, that the books should no longer be used by the district.

In addition, the three challengers claimed that the district had not done enough in sex education programs to promote abstinence among students. And the challengers argued for term limits on the school board, hoping to persuade voters that the district needed new direction.

But the incumbents, whose joint campaigning was virtually unprecedented for the school board, repeatedly defended the district’s curricula and direction. And the election results, they said Wednesday, showed that voters believe the district has been well-run and the school board responsive.

“The voters gave us a vote of confidence,” Dombrowski said, declaring the election “a mandate” for the board to continue its policies.

“For the most part,” added board member Swanson, “the election shows we have the support of the overall community, not just in terms of ‘Impressions’ but in other things--the budget, the teaching staff, the whole operation of the district.”

The unsuccessful challengers argued that the election’s meaning was murky for several reasons, including the low voter turnout, which was about 13% citywide. And the reelection of the school board members, they said, may prove nothing more than the difficulty of unseating incumbents.

“I think it says more about unseating incumbents than it does about where the parents are really at on many issues,” Carrico said.

“Sure, I’m disappointed (with the results), but I’m not surprised,” she said, noting that all three challengers were political newcomers.

Carrico and the other unsuccessful candidates said it was too early to know if they will again seek election to the school board when the district’s next elections are held in two years.

The incumbents, meanwhile, said they do not expect the challenges over “Impressions” and other issues to end with the election.

“We won on the basis that people generally don’t want censorship. . . . It was the only issue people really cared about,” Zellers said. “But these (critics) are very sincere about the issue, and I don’t expect that this is the last we have heard from them.”

Preliminary Election Returns

Final results will be released after a canvas today. Winners in boldface: REDONDO BEACH CITY COUNCIL

28 of 28 Precincts Reporting

Candidate Vote % City Clerk John Oliver (i) 3,406 100 City Treasurer Alice E. DeLong (i) 3,331 100

City Council*

District 3 6 of 6 Precincts Reporting

Candidate Vote % Steve Colin (i) 705 68.8 Gregory Cox 267 26.1 Jack Tyler 52 5.1

District 5 6 of 6 Precincts Reporting

Candidate Vote % Joseph R. White 327 27.9 Michael Herman 246 21.0 Bruce Unruh 228 19.4 Mary Ann Rockwell 192 16.4 Robe Richester 180 15.3

*Candidate needs more than 50% of vote to win; otherwise, two top finishers meet in runoff.

REDONDO BEACH

CITY SCHOOL DISTRICT

Board of Education (three seats) 28 of 28 Precincts Reporting

Candidate Vote % Valerie (Val) Dombrowski (i) 2,615 22.2 Bart Swanson (i) 2,372 20.2 Sylvia Zellers (i) 2,320 19.7 Pat Safani 1,531 13.0 Melinda E. Stone 1,502 12.7 Donna Carrico 1,433 12.2

Prop A

(Increase city library commission from five members to seven.) 28 of 28 Precincts

For Against Prop. A 2,462 1,412