ELECTIONS : Candidates Addressing Fiscal, Image Problems

With all the candidates vying for office in El Monte, the April 14 election looks like a game of musical chairs.

Two council members are running for mayor, one is running for treasurer, a former assistant police chief wants to be a councilman and two former council members are seeking office again.

Altogether, six people are battling for two City Council seats and a former South El Monte councilman wants to be the first Latino mayor in a city with a 72% Latino population. Even the city clerk’s post, usually an easy incumbent win, is contested.

Why all the political scuffling and shuffling?

El Monte is in trouble, say the candidates.

They list an anticipated gap of $1.7 million at the end of the fiscal year, a 3% utility tax resented by many residents, increased graffiti and a negative image that keeps new businesses away.

The budget problems are not new. Since 1986, the council has dipped into the city’s reserve fund to meet operating costs, City Administrator Gregory Korduner said. Decreased sales taxes, elimination of federal revenue-sharing money, and state demand for more motor vehicle and parking ticket money have reduced El Monte’s income by more than $3 million yearly at a time when expenses have gone up, Korduner said.

Even with $2 million in cutbacks this year and $1.65 million expected annually from the new utility tax, El Monte will be in the red June 30. Dipping into the reserves again will reduce the account to $4.5 million, Korduner said.

But the departure of four incumbents--the city treasurer and three councilmen--opens the way for change. Most of the candidates say they are the needed new blood.

Mayoral candidate Patricia Wallach, 54, an incumbent councilwoman who served nine years on the school board, says her lone vote last year against the 3% utility tax is proof of her difference. She pledged to end the use of reserve funds and to balance the budget if she is elected mayor with a new council behind her.

“I think the leadership needs to be stronger, and I’m a strong leader,” Wallach said.

The council did not thoroughly examine all money-saving and money-generating ideas, such as increased service and business license fees and other suggestions from city employees, she said. Similarly rejected was her proposal to study replacing the city’s Fire Department with county firefighters, a possible money-saving idea that Wallach said should be revived.

But Jack Thurston, 56, an incumbent councilman also running for mayor, is “totally opposed” to county-provided firefighters. Local control means better responsiveness, he said. In addition, county firefighters would cost more because their salaries are higher, he said.

A general manager of a West Covina drapery store, Thurston said his background is needed to lift the city out of its economic slump. “I feel the City Council needs business expertise and I am the only candidate with that,” he said.

Meanwhile, Robert (Mickey) Bojorquez, a former two-term South El Monte councilman, is running a write-in mayoral campaign. The graffiti problem is best solved by focusing on youth, he said. School visits by council members, a youth advisory commission with student members and cable television programs focusing on young people are a start, he said.

He also seeks district elections and elimination of the two-year elected mayor’s post to make the city’s politicians more responsive to voters and cure what he says is ongoing neglect of city problems.

Bojorquez, a representative for Los Angeles City Employees Union, Local 347, said he is the first Spanish-surnamed candidate to run for mayor. “The people to blame for this condition is us, La Raza,” he said of the lack of previous Latino mayors. “We can’t depend on the Anglo to appoint us or elect us.”

Tom Millett, 61, former El Monte assistant police chief, said he is running for the council to repay the city for 29 years of employment. He wants more police officers and he wants to encourage commercial investors to put their dollars in the city.

“I want to reverse the image of El Monte, show (investors) we have a secure community and that people in the community would shop in their stores,” Millett said.

Council candidate Ernest Gutierrez, 57, a school administrator and former two-term city councilman, cites his past council efforts to get grocery and drug stores to open in El Monte. More such efforts are needed to boost the city economy and cure the budget deficit, he said.

The council should not have imposed the utility tax but rather should have looked carefully for cutbacks in services unrelated to public safety, he said. In imposing the tax, council members claimed that the city was broke.

But Gutierrez said: “How different is that from many families going broke? What happens when families are going broke? They don’t spend. They cut back.”

Maria Avila, 66, a youth program coordinator, said she wants the city to encourage more low-income housing to avoid penalties for not meeting state-mandated goals. The council candidate opposes using county firefighters and, as did other candidates, said businesses need to be lobbied to move to the city.

“El Monte is really a beautiful city and I want to see it progress,” she said.

Businessman Art Platten, 60, who ran unsuccessfully for office four times before, is making his third attempt at a City Council seat. He also urges a more aggressive public relations effort. “The city has everything in the world to offer and no one is banging the drum,” Platten said.

Platten wants to repeal the utility tax, then put it to the voters in a ballot measure. He said the city budget could be balanced by selling city-owned land, eliminating projects that don’t adequately serve the public and more carefully scrutinizing city expenditures. He also wants cable television broadcasting of City Council meetings and a senior citizen commission to coordinate services.

Council candidate George Williams, 45, a carpenters union representative, sees crime and gangs as the city’s major ills. Creation of a leadership team of school, church, union, hospital and business officials would help solve the city’s problems, he said.

“The leadership team would discuss the needs of the community and get new ideas,” Williams said. “The City Council can only do so much.”

Council candidate Doris Frank, 63, owner of a waste disposal company, criticized the council for traveling to France last year on city money for the sister-city program and then later imposing the utility tax. She said such unnecessary spending should be limited and the utility tax repealed.

Graffiti could be combatted with a video camera lending program to tape those committing the crimes, Frank said. “The graffiti is just horrible,” she said. “They’re vandalizing everything.”

The city clerk’s race between incumbent Kathleen Kaplan, 42, and Rose Griffith, 29, a hospital emergency room clerk, is Kaplan’s first contested race and Griffith’s first entry into politics.

During her 11 years as clerk, Kaplan said she earned an associate of science degree in business administration and took computer courses to oversee the computerization of election ballot counting and clerk’s records. “I have done a good job; there hasn’t been any reason to replace me,” she said.

But Kaplan has been slow in getting out sample ballots, Griffith said. She added that taxpayers could save money by hiring a newcomer like herself at a $36,000 annual salary instead of the $50,000 Kaplan receives.

The treasurer’s race pits Jack Crippen, 68, a councilman since 1968, against Henry (Hank) Velasco, 59, a real estate agent who served on the council from 1976 to 1986.

The treasurer’s job would let him continue serving the city without long council hours, Crippen said. Volunteer work in similar posts and his council experience qualify him for the treasurer’s job, he added.

But Velasco said Crippen’s failure to push for a balanced budget while on the council renders him unsuitable for the treasurer’s post. Velasco characterized himself as a fiscal conservative who would invest the city’s money wisely.

The candidates will be at a forum sponsored by the El Monte-South El Monte Chamber of Commerce at 7 p.m. Tuesday ) in the El Monte Community Center, 3130 Tyler Ave.

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