ELECTIONS : Close Finishes in Pomona, Pasadena Races : Pasadena: It seems that Elbie Hickambottom is still a school board member, and black activist Isaac Richard joins the Board of Directors.

A veteran school board member and a first-time candidate for the Board of Directors apparently were elected Tuesday in city runoff elections.

Elbie Hickambottom, who has been on the Pasadena Unified School District board for 12 years, appears to have won a fourth term with 53.7% of the vote.

Meanwhile, voters in racially divided District 1 apparently chose Isaac Richard, a 33-year-old black activist whose message, “Do the Right Thing,” earned him 52.9% of the vote in the runoff election.

Some votes by people not on the rolls were still uncounted; officials said final results will not be available until Friday.

Voters citywide also approved an uncontested proposal to change the city’s 1989 growth management initiative. The change, which received 60% of the vote, will allow residential units unallocated under the current limit of 250 units yearly to be carried over for more than one year, which was the previous limit.

At the ballot box, Hickambottom, 66, a retired Army major, beat out businessman and attorney E. Clark Coberly, 42, in the school board district that includes Pasadena, Altadena and Sierra Madre.

Richard’s apparent victory by 181 votes over Nicholas T. Conway, 39, a white municipal consultant, means that for the first time, Pasadena will have two black directors on the seven-member board.

Minorities now constitute 53% of the city’s population, and Richard’s apparent victory Tuesday was viewed by some as the culmination of a decades-long struggle by minorities for greater political representation in the city.

Black residents sued the city in 1979 to establish district-only elections after black candidates won twice in District 1 but failed to carry the citywide vote against white candidates.

“I had nothing to do with this,” Richard said Tuesday evening, after he pulled up to the city’s convention center in a car blaring a Bob Dylan song. “Bob said it best, ‘The times they are a-changing.’ ”

City Director Chris Holden, who represents District 3, and who is black, called the evening historic but said Richard now faces the challenge of “building a coalition in an obviously divided district.”

Unofficial election results Tuesday showed that Richard got from 77% to 94% of the vote in three minority-dominated precincts, while Conway received from 75% to 81% of the vote in three precincts where Anglo residents are a majority.

Conway said Richard must have conducted a better campaign and wished his opponent well. But when asked if he would run again, Conway said no and criticized a get-out-the-vote effort used election night in Northwest Pasadena in which free meals were offered by Richard’s supporters to those who presented voting-booth stubs.

“Any time they’re giving away meals for votes is not something I want to be part of,” Conway said. “It’s disgusting.”

The runoff election between Richard and Conway was in a district long divided along racial lines. District 1 encompasses the exclusive Linda Vista and Annandale neighborhoods, where homes range from $350,000 to $1.5 million, and the heavily minority Northwest Pasadena, a low-income neighborhood peppered with dilapidated Victorian houses.

After the city switched to district-only elections, City Director John Crowley, 71, who is white, continued to represent the area because minority voters twice failed to turn out in sufficient numbers to vote for black candidates. But after 12 years in office, Crowley decided not to run for a fourth term.

Richard’s apparent win could mean that the seven-member board, now dominated on some development, business and zoning issues by a conservative majority, may undergo a liberal shift. Crowley often aligned with City Directors Kathryn Nack, William Thomson and occasionally with William Paparian. Richard will most likely ally with Mayor Jess Hughston and directors Rick Cole and Holden.

ELECTION RETURNS PASADENA Absentee ballots not included in results 58 of 58 Precincts Proposition A-91 Should the city allow residential units unallocated under the current growth management initiative limit of 250 yearly to be carried over for more than one year?

VOTE % For 4,463 66.1 Against 2,286 33.9

Board of Directors 10 of 10 Precincts District 1

VOTE % Isaac Richard 1,761 52.9 Nicholas T. Conway 1,570 47.1

Pasadena Unified School District Board Seat 4 88 of 88 Precincts

VOTE % Elbie Hickambottom (i) 5,437 53.7 E. Clark Coberly 4,682 46.3

(i) incumbent