Judge’s Ruling Puts Furutani Back in the Race : Elections: 10 days after the city clerk said he did not have enough valid signatures to qualify for the ballot, the former Los Angeles school board president is in the running for City Council’s 15th District seat.

A Superior Court judge on Wednesday ended days of haggling between lawyers for the City of Los Angeles and Warren Furutani, ruling that Furutani had collected enough valid voter signatures to qualify for the ballot in the 15th City Council District race.

The city clerk’s office disqualified Furutani from the contest 10 days ago, asserting that only 433 of his 973 signatures were from registered voters now living in the district--67 short of the requisite 500.

That Furutani, a two-term member and past president of the Los Angeles Unified School District board, had been disqualified stunned both his opponents and supporters in the 15th District, which includes Watts, Wilmington, San Pedro and Harbor City/Harbor Gateway.

His absence would have dramatically changed the seven-person contest, in which he is the only challenger to incumbent Joan Milke Flores to have also held elective office. With Furutani out of the race, most political observers believed Flores’ main competition would come from Janice Hahn, a businesswoman and daughter of former County Supervisor Kenneth Hahn.

Before heading to court Wednesday, the clerk’s office conceded that it should not have thrown out 45 of Furutani’s signatures. But lawyers for the city and for Furutani could not agree on 22 others after spending hours scrutinizing signatures and addresses, debating matters such as whether o’s looked like a’s or fours were in fact sevens.

Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Diane Wayne urged both sides to examine more signatures, pointing to the 45 errors made by the clerk’s office as an indicator that others might be found. But after two hours of poring over petitions upstairs in the court’s cafeteria, Assistant City Atty. Anthony Alperin and Kristine Heffron of the city clerk’s office agreed to validate only 10 more names--still 12 short of qualifying Furutani for the ballot.

Back in court, Wayne accepted an additional 12.

“I think what this showed was they made these mistakes and that I should’ve been on the ballot all along,” Furutani said later.

Although Furutani’s campaign was put on hold for 10 days, the ordeal, he said, will ultimately bolster his candidacy because it shows voters that he knows how to fight City Hall and win. The episode also shows that voting regulations must be overhauled to include an appeal process for candidates faced with disqualification, he said.

“This took 10 days of work by eight people working eight hours a day to come up with these names, go over the microfiche at the county clerk’s office and sometimes go back out into the district to get affidavits from people,” he said.

“I personally paid $1,000 for the affidavits, and I don’t even know yet what the legal fees will be,” he said. “I’m just fortunate I had people who were willing to do so much work.”

Judge Wayne accepted the previously invalidated signatures for several reasons. For example, several signatures disqualified by the clerk’s office belonged to women who had married and changed their names, signed Furutani’s petition with their married names and thus were not found in the clerk’s files.

Many times, the city argued that a voter’s handwriting on the petition did not match that on the voter registration card, and Wayne disagreed. One voter Alperin cited had a fancier signature on Furutani’s petition than on the registration card.

“What we found was that there were twice as many curlicues as on the original,” Alperin said.

“It looks the same to me,” Wayne said. “But then, if you saw the way I sign my name you’d probably disqualify me from this case.”

Furutani’s opponents in the race welcomed him back in, unanimously agreeing that if nothing else, his participation would make the race more interesting for voters.

One of the other council candidates, lawyer James Paul Thompson, said, “What this does is it puts one more qualified candidate back on the ballot.”

Incumbent Flores said she had never counted Furutani out of the race. “It was a fair ruling--although it might not have been what I wished,” she said with a laugh. But another of Flores’ challengers, Louis Dominquez, said all candidates were given explicit instructions about what kinds of signatures would be accepted or disqualified--and Furutani should have followed them.

And candidate Rudolph Svorinich portrayed Furutani’s court victory as a blow to Hahn and Flores--and a poor reflection on Furutani.

“Personally, I think he’s going to take away votes from Jan Hahn and Joan Flores, so it’s fine with me,” Svorinich said. “But I think it’s in perfect character for professional politicians to do whatever they can to get back on the ballot, even if they have to sue.”

Although Furutani was found to have enough valid signatures to qualify for the ballot, it was still unclear after Wednesday’s court hearing exactly how many valid signatures he has.

“Well, by my count, that puts us one over and we have 501 signatures,” said Shannon Foley, one of Furutani’s attorneys as the session drew to a close.

“No! wait a minute!,” said Alperin “As I count them, based on your honor’s rulings that gets them 500, not 501.”