Election Doesn’t End Bickering : Politics: Mayor chides rival on last-minute mailer, and the city clerk is accused of not living in the city.

The city’s newly elected mayor and City Council members took office Tuesday night amid a sea of celebratory yellow-rose corsages and boutonnieres, a looming political fight and accusations that the reelected city clerk does not live within the city boundaries.

It was a continuation of the political tussling that marked the city’s April 14 election battles. Candidates aligned themselves in slates, and some mailed last-minute political hit pieces during the fractious campaign.

“The one-upmanship prevalent in the campaign has to be sidelined,” newly elected Councilman Ernest Gutierrez said Tuesday night to an overflow crowd that spilled into the hallways outside the City Council chambers.

But it was not to be, at least not Tuesday.

Newly elected Mayor Patricia Wallach, the city’s first councilwoman and now the city’s first female mayor, took to task her mayoral opponent, Councilman Jack Thurston, for a mailer sent to voters the Saturday before the election.

Wallach countered the criticism contained in the mailer about her travels at city expense to Sister City gatherings and city-related conferences. She charged that Thurston attended similar gatherings, borrowed $1,500 from city money to take family members and took a year to repay the money. Thurston let the comment pass without a reply.

Wallach’s statements drew gasps from the crowd.

Meanwhile, Gutierrez’s selection as vice mayor for the coming year went smoothly, but the council balked at its second task: appointing someone to fill the council seat vacated by Wallach.

The selection was put off until Tuesday’s meeting, despite a protest by Gutierrez. Wallach asked those interested in the job to contact city officials.

The reason for the delay, council members said after the meeting, is that Wallach and some of the council members have different ideas about who should fill the job.

Gutierrez favors appointing Maria Avila, his slate mate who came in third in the race among six candidates. But Wallach, who supported council candidate Art Platten, said she is opposed to Avila. She favors consideration of Platten, the two other council candidates--George Williams and Doris Frank--or anyone else interested in the job.

Thurston declined to say whom he favors, and new Councilman Tom Millett said he thought that he needed more time to choose a new council member.

The meeting had nearly ended and the victors appeared headed to a reception when a final fracas erupted. Greg Griffith, husband of unsuccessful city clerk candidate Rose Griffith, accused City Clerk Kathleen Kaplan of not living within the city boundaries. Residency within the city of El Monte is a requirement for public office under state government codes.

Griffith, who passed out trust deeds dated June 28, 1991, to Kaplan’s home in Moreno Valley, said Kaplan also applied for a homeowner’s exemption with the Riverside County assessor’s office.

“I personally have followed her home,” Griffith said. “I personally have sat overnight and followed her back into work. Miss Kaplan is not a resident of the city of El Monte.”

An official with the Riverside County assessor’s office Tuesday verified that Kaplan filed the exemption in October. The form entitles taxpayers to an $80 yearly tax reduction for property claimed as their principal place of residence.

Although Kaplan did not attend the meeting because of illness, she said in a telephone interview earlier that day that she still lives in El Monte.

“I’m buying a house out there (in Moreno Valley)and my daughters are living in it,” Kaplan said. “I can’t afford to buy a house in El Monte.”

Kaplan, a single woman who earns more than $50,000 a year as city clerk, said she moved to El Monte as a renter when she was first appointed to the city clerk’s job 11 years ago. She has been elected twice with no opponents.

After buying the Moreno Valley home in June and letting her daughters, 20 and 22 years old, move in, Kaplan said, she took a room rent free with a friend on Hemlock Street. Last weekend, she said she changed her El Monte address again and is house-sitting for former Mayor Don McMillen, who is living in Oregon.

She said she signed the homeowner’s exemption because she thought that it was only a procedural step when buying a home.

“I’d never done this before; I thought I was being smart,” Kaplan said. “I suppose I should have paid more attention.”

The matter was referred to City Atty. David Gondek, who will report back next week. But Griffith also sent a letter complaining about Kaplan’s residency to the Los Angeles County district attorney, among others, asking for an investigation.

Deputy Dist. Atty. Roger Gunsen, in charge of special investigations, said he receives about two such requests annually. Those who falsify their voter registration records can face felony prosecution for perjury, which carries a penalty of up to four years in state prison.

But Gunsen said prosecutions are rarely undertaken because intent to deceive is extremely difficult to prove. In addition, the district attorney’s office is constrained by prior court cases that permit allowance for an individual’s intent to live in a particular place, even if the person actually lives somewhere else.