A community of 12,000 goes to the polls to find a voice and an identity.

NAME GAME: What’s in a name? Just ask the estimated 12,000 people who live in an unincorporated area near El Camino College. The community, north of Manhattan Beach Boulevard and south of Marine Avenue, has been searching for a way to have its voice heard at the county level.

So it voted last week and decided to form a five-member town council to represent its interests. But the hottest draw on the ballot was what to call the community of 1950s-era homes, bounded on the west by Prairie Avenue and on the east by Van Ness Avenue.

The winner by a landslide: El Camino Village. Jim Dear, one of the leaders of the movement to name the community, said the next step is to put up identifying signs.

To accomplish that chore, he said the group plans to approach both the county and the City of Gardena. Dear also said he hopes the signs will provide a “psychological boost” that will help spur a cleanup of the business district along Crenshaw Boulevard.

For the record: the losers in the name-the-community contest were El Camino Park and El Camino Estates.

DISASTER RELIEF: The battle-tested Lane Victory, a World War II vintage merchant ship berthed in San Pedro, has a new mission. It’s being turned into a floating disaster relief station by the Los Angeles Chapter of the America Red Cross, in cooperation with the ship’s owners, the U. S. Merchant Marine Veterans of World War II.

“The Lane Victory is uniquely capable of providing direct disaster relief,” said Joe Vernick, the veteran group’s president. The ship, designated a national monument, is now a floating museum dedicated to the memory of merchant mariners who died at sea in three wars.

Completely restored, the 455-foot long vessel could be of great service in a disaster such as the 1989 San Francisco earthquake, officials said.

The ship’s five holds can store tons of emergency supplies and provide shelter for thousands. Its kitchens can turn out 2,000 meals a day, and its high-pressure hoses would be invaluable in fighting waterfront fires, experts said.

THERE SHE IS . . . Undine Wildman is first and foremost a schoolteacher. She spent 37 years in the classroom, most recently in the Long Beach Unified School District, before her retirement last year.

So what was she doing in an evening gown the other night at the Ms. Senior America of California pageant in Torrance? “I am married to this wonderful human being who wanted me to do it,” she said, “and that’s how I decided to do it.”

Wildman beat 18 other contestants to take the crown, winning over the crowd with her jazz rendition of “Sometimes I Feel Like a Motherless Child.”

Wildman said she began singing when she was 5 and earned her first money by singing in a funeral choir at the tender age of 11.

“I still sing professionally, but I don’t do nightclubs,” she said. “I’m allergic to smoke.”

Wildman now goes on to the national competition in Nashville, Tenn., in May. The Ms. Senior America Pageant--open to those 60 and older--is sponsored by FHP Health Care, which says it seeks “the gracious lady who best exemplifies the dignity and inner beauty of all senior Americans.”

REBUILDING L.A.: The harbor area’s share of Rebuild L.A. money continues to trickle in from downtown. Wilmington resident Eleanor Montano, who sits on the board of Rebuild L.A., had encouraged people in Wilmington, San Pedro and Harbor City to submit proposals for funding, assuring that the harbor area would get its fair share.

Requests put in months ago are beginning to bear fruit. Six months ago, Mike Herrera, executive director of the Boys and Girls Club of Wilmington, wrote to Rebuild L.A., asking for a van. Last Tuesday, he got it.

“This changes a lot for us because the biggest complaint we get is that the club is too far away to reach children in all of Wilmington,” Herrera said. “Now with the van we’re going to do after-school pickups. We’re going to start slow, but we hope this will bring about 50 more kids a day to the club.”

HE’S BACK: City leaders in Torrance woke up Friday morning to find their old financial nemesis, money manager Steven D. Wymer, receiving top-of-the-news treatment in the local and national media.

But this time, reporters weren’t focusing on the spectacular debacle in which Wymer allegedly defrauded Torrance and dozens of other governments out of more than $100 million.

Instead, the infamous investment adviser was featured as star witness at a Capitol Hill hearing in which he talked about how investors could protect themselves from financiers like himself.

Wymer, who has pleaded guilty to nine felony counts, recounted how he used documents to convince investigators his affairs were in order, crediting his success to his “attention to detail” and regulators’ ineptitude.

Torrance officials, who are trying to recoup some or all of the $6.2 million the city lost in the scandal, said they were not surprised by Wymer’s testimony before a House subcommittee.

“Some might view it as the fox guarding the chicken coop,” said Chris Caldwell, an attorney representing Torrance. “At the same time, there’s an argument that he knows as much about this as anyone.”

Torrance Mayor Katy Geissert added: “He’s obviously quite expert. You might call him Superfraud.”

QUOTE OF THE WEEK

“We’ve spent a half a million dollars in six years painting out graffiti, and what do I have to show for it?”

Ernie Paculba, director of the Gang Alternatives Program in the Harbor area.

LAST WEEK’S CITY HALL HIGHLIGHTS

Inglewood: City Treasurer Wanda M. Brown failed to get support from the City Council last week when she asked for a $66,000 raise. As a part-time, elected treasurer, Brown earns $3,996 in what is largely a ceremonial post. She has proposed becoming a full-time treasurer. But the idea died for lack of a motion.

THIS WEEK’S CITY HALL HIGHLIGHTS

Carson: The City Council will decide Monday how many forums should be held to gather opinions on whether to withdraw from the Los Angeles Unified School District. Proposed meeting locations include the community center and several parks, and a live telephone call-in show on the local cable channel.