Hopes for Fiscal Relief Die With Casino Defeat : Election: Anti-gambling camp overwhelms opposition by 2-1 ratio in vote. The city had hoped for added revenue.

South Gate’s hope for a solution to pressing financial problems died Tuesday with the stunning defeat of a measure that would have allowed gambling in the industrial city.

Measure A lost by a 2-1 ratio, surprising both supporters and opponents, who expected a close race.

It became clear an hour after the polls closed that backers of the proposal were outmaneuvered, outspent and outnumbered.

Supporters of the measure failed to win even one of the city’s 17 precincts, and in some cases lost precincts by a 4-1 ratio.

“We were stunned,” said Dennis Desnoo, the campaign manager for the Committee to Protect South Gate, which backed Measure A. “We were anticipating a close race. We fought very hard, figuring it was winnable.”

The City Council had counted on the casino revenues to revitalize an anemic tax base. Plant closures and a sagging economy have sapped the city’s resources, leaving it on the brink of bankruptcy. The casino, as part of a $60-million entertainment complex, was seen as a cash cow by city officials who projected revenues of $7 million a year in taxes.

The council, however, was unable to persuade those voters who shunned the idea of professional gambling in their quiet community.

“I don’t think the voters believed that we are broke,” City Councilman Larry Leonard said. “I don’t think they understood the severity of the problem. This puts us back to square one.”

The city’s senior citizens played a crucial role in the measure’s defeat, and they could be seen throughout the day filing in and out of precincts, many grumbling about gambling, the casino and the City Council.

“We don’t need it. We don’t want it,” longtime resident Edward Knapp said flatly as he and his wife, Melvina, left the polling place.

Seniors were the foundation of the opposition orchestrated by The Wessell Company, a Burbank-based political campaign management firm known for its big spending, sophisticated mailers, grass-roots organizing and winning record.

With the help of seniors, church leaders and former city officials, not to mention a $150,000 war chest, The Wessell Company was able to voice a loud “No” that was apparently heard throughout the community.

“Our failure to get out into the churches was a fatal injury to us,” Mayor Gregory Slaughter said. “We didn’t have the captive audiences they did.”

But Wessell’s campaign also had help from an unusual and, he says, unwanted source. George Hardie, the operator of the Bicycle Club, a card casino located just a mile away in Bell Gardens, launched a hard-hitting campaign against the casino measure.

Hardie spent at least $40,000 on mailers and posters that raised questions about the Greater Los Angeles Development Company, the Walnut-based company that had city approval to build the casino. Hardie repeatedly demanded that Mary Wang, the general partner of the company, reveal the identity of her investors. Wang refused.

“I think the proponents lost because they didn’t put all their cards on the table,” Hardie said. “There was too much unsaid, too much undisclosed. The whole thing was simply speculation, a fishing license.”

But South Gate observers say the reason for the defeat has less to do with morality and gambling than with politics. Throughout the campaign a let’s-get-the-council atmosphere prevailed among political opponents of some council members.

By last week, it became apparent that the success or failure of Measure A would be seen as an indication of the success or failure of the reelection campaigns of Mayor Slaughter and Councilman Robert A. Philipp next April.

“This was a springboard for the April election,” Councilman Leonard said. “We’ll be up to our eyebrows in muck.”

City Council critics were unabashed in their determination to see a new council elected.

“We were not only hoping for the defeat of the measure, but the City Council who sponsored it,” Nate Benson, a leader in the fight against the casino, said Tuesday night at campaign headquarters.

“Praise the Lord to that,” said a man listening to the conversation.

Senior citizens and a small group of teen-agers gathered to celebrate the victory with homemade bologna sandwiches and doughnuts.

Across town, in the headquarters of the Committee to Protect South Gate, a small group of tired men with loosened ties sat around a 12-pack of beer, quietly discussing their loss.

Desnoo, the campaign manager for the Committee to Protect South Gate, said the magnitude of the defeat showed only one thing: “Voters don’t want gambling in South Gate. It wasn’t this tactic or that tactic. It was rejected across the board. It cut through age, party, ethnicity. Voters didn’t like the idea of gamblers in South Gate.”

Desnoo’s group, funded entirely by the Greater Los Angeles Development Group, spent about $150,000 on the campaign.

The loss has left city officials with the formidable task of finding new revenues without cutting services or imposing taxes.

“Our economic problems are still here,” Mayor Slaughter said. “The city of South Gate lost a $60-million investment opportunity that it will never get again. We are not sure what we are going to do.”

In fact, despondent city leaders said, the only real winners in this campaign are George Hardie and the city of Bell Gardens.

“Bell Gardens has been well-served,” Slaughter joked bitterly. “They should give Hardie a major award.”

Community correspondent Suzan Schill contributed to this story.

SOUTH GATE * Measure A

Should the City Council authorize the establishment of a card casino? 17 of 17 Precincts Reporting

VOTE % Yes 1,393 30.2 No 3,221 69.8

Measure requires majority to pass.