ELECTIONS BALDWIN PARK : Hot Issues, Contentious Field Make Race Exciting

Even for a city that has had its share of flamboyant election campaigns, next month’s promises to be a doozy.

Not only is there a crowded, contentious field, with three candidates for mayor and eight for two City Council seats, but there are also a pair of ballot measures designed to heat up emotions, an unprecedented representation of Latino candidates and an incumbent councilman burdened with a drunk-driving arrest.

“It’s certainly an extraordinary election,” said City Councilman Martin Gallegos, who is vying with seven other candidates for two council seats on the April 14 ballot.

Giving the campaign special energy are Baldwin Park’s money problems. The city of 69,000 has suffered more than its share of financial setbacks in recent years, from expensive legal problems with the money-losing Baldwin Park Hilton to a bond rating service’s reduction in the rating of a city bond issue.

The city has the lowest sales tax receipts in the county, and declining revenues are beginning to show, residents say. For example, the beleaguered Police Department, which has one of the lowest ratios of officers to citizens in the county, can’t keep up with a proliferating graffiti problem, residents say, and the streets have never seemed more littered.

But even the city’s fiscal problems can’t quite account for the odd look to this year’s election. Among the unusual elements:

An unprecedented 11 out of 15 people running for office this year, including seven out of the eight council candidates, are Latino. Though the city’s population is more than 70% Latino, only one council member is Latino.

Councilman Herschel Keyser, 60, who is running for reelection, faces a trial for drunk driving after he was arrested in Baldwin Park in January. Adding to his political problems, police maintain that he said inflammatory and insulting things to arresting officers.

The voters have been asked to decide whether they want legalized gambling in the form of a card club.

Another ballot measure calls for a special assessment for police services.

With the election still more than three weeks away, the campaign hasn’t really heated up yet, politicians say. The city’s little cottages and tract houses sport only an occasional lawn sign, and there is little street-corner discussion of election issues. But the candidates are beginning to make their rounds, and word is getting out about the big issues, especially the card club.

The idea makes a lot of people edgy. “I’ll move out if they do that,” said Rosa Martinez, a 10-year Baldwin Park resident, pulling bags of groceries out of a car near her Los Angeles Avenue home. “I have no problem with gambling, but it’s the kind of people who’ll come into the city.”

The card club measure’s prime proponent is Keyser, who led a petition campaign for it last year, persuading the council to place it on the ballot. “With the economy the way it is, we can use the revenue,” Keyser said. “Instead of dipping into people’s pockets (with new taxes), you have people from other cities contributing.”

But the idea has attracted the ire of church and community groups, including the influential Baldwin Park chapter of the East Valleys Organization, representing 7,000 mostly Catholic families. Most fear the introduction of organized crime and corruption into their city.

“We don’t believe this is the solution to our problems,” said EVO leader Graciela Aguilera. “The council is showing no imagination. We want to bring industry and jobs into Baldwin Park, businesses that think highly of us, not casinos.”

Of all the mayoral and council candidates, only Keyser has come out unequivocally for the card house, a factor that may further doom the measure, some observers say.

“Our best campaign asset is Mr. Keyser,” Aguilera said.

The incumbent councilman, who says he will not actively campaign either for his council seat or for the card club measure, faces special difficulties because of his arrest Jan. 25 for drunk driving. After the arrest, Keyser allegedly told arresting officers: “I don’t blame people for shooting at you. I think it should be declared open season on Baldwin Park police. I hope you get shot and killed tonight.”

Keyser won’t comment on the charges until after his trial next month, other than to say that the Baldwin Park Police Officers Assn., whose members complained publicly about him at a council meeting from which he was absent last month, have tried him in a “kangaroo court.”

The association has endorsed three Latino candidates, Fidel A. Vargas for mayor and incumbent Martin Gallegos and challenger Raul Martinez for council.

Though not as controversial as the card club measure, the police assessment measure also is getting little support from the candidates. Police officials complain that, with only one police officer per 1,000 residents, theirs is among the most skimpily staffed departments in the San Gabriel Valley.

The City Council last year reinstituted a 3% utility tax, most of which has gone to hiring 10 new officers. But even with those new officers, said Police Chief Carmine Lanza, the department ranks fourth lowest in the county in police-to-citizen ratios. The assessment would fund eight more officers and some new police equipment, city officials say.

Several candidates, however, suggest further streamlining of city government before imposing new taxes.

With Keyser not campaigning, the prospects are good for at least two Latinos on the council. If Vargas should pull an upset over Mayor Bette L. Lowes and Councilman Bobbie Izell, who also is challenging Lowes, there would be a Latino majority on the council for the first time in Baldwin Park.

The challenge for all the Latino candidates is to get out the Latino vote. Less than half of the city’s 15,291 registered voters are Latino, and turnout in previous municipal elections has been less than 20%.

In the mayoral race, Lowes is running simply on her record. “I feel I’ve done an excellent job,” she said. “I’ve had an open-door policy, and I feel I’ve brought people together.”

Councilman Izell opposes the two ballot measures, calling for a battalion of 300 volunteers to pitch in to assist the police and clean up the parks. “I think volunteers will be the wave of the future in California,” he said.

Vargas, a 23-year-old business analyst for Cordova Corp., is a Harvard graduate who says he has returned to his hometown on a mission to make Baldwin Park a safe place for his family. He believes that city costs can be further reduced. “I’m not convinced they’ve pinched every penny out of the tax dollars they’ve been shelling out,” he said.

In the council race, incumbents Keyser and Gallegos face a varied field. Gallegos, 35, a chiropractor, was appointed to finish Lowes’ council term after she won the mayoralty in 1990. He advocates a beefed-up Police Department, which he thinks can be done without the new assessment tax.

Martinez, a Southern California Edison customer service supervisor, agrees that more waste could be trimmed from the city’s budget. Printing contractor Eulogio Roca, who ran unsuccessfully for the Baldwin Park Board of Education last year, is focusing on the needs of his own neighborhood, in the north part of the city, on the principle that the rest of the city has the same concerns about gangs and graffiti.

Raul Reyes, 36, an Internal Revenue Service officer, has run unsuccessfully for council in three previous elections. He says the card club would be another in a long line of boondoggles in Baldwin Park. Printing contractor Manuel Orona, 55, says the No. 1 issue should be reducing drug abuse. Richard Gonzalez, 40, a teacher and businessman, and Anthony Bejarano, 43, a retired railroad worker, could not be reached.

Also on the ballot are candidates for city clerk--incumbent Linda L. Gair and businesswoman Janett Zarate--and for treasurer--incumbent Ana Montenegro and homemaker Azucena Zarate.