He won right to be a write-in candidate, now he wants city to write him a check.

WRITE-IN RIGHTS: Sal Princiotta didn’t want to let a thing like coming in fifth place in a field of eight candidates discourage him from running for the Redondo Beach City Council again. But now that he has won his battle to become a write-in candidate in the city’s May 11 runoff election, Princiotta wants the city to compensate him for the confusion and trouble he had to go through to prove his right to do it.

Princiotta has filed a $350 claim against City Atty. Gordon Phillips for allegedly misreading the elections code and later invalidating Princiotta’s initial efforts to become a write-in candidate because he had started too early. Princiotta says he stayed up nearly all of one night collecting signatures on his qualifying petition and writing a candidate’s statement for the sample ballot after Phillips told him he had less than 24 hours to do so.

The following day, after Princiotta turned in his documents, Phillips told him he had started too early and would have to collect new signatures. In addition, he said, write-in candidates would not be eligible to have a statement in the sample ballot. Princiotta said he will complete the new paperwork, but he wants $350--14 hours of work at $25 per hour--to compensate him for his trouble.

Phillips, who said he was breaking a self-imposed silence on pending litigation to comment, said he never urged Princiotta to hurry his application and called the claim “frivolous.” Phillips said he will recommend that the new city attorney, who takes over next month, sue Princiotta for malicious prosecution if he presses a lawsuit.

“He jumped the gun and tried to obtain an advantage over other write-ins . . . and now he’s trying to blame me,” Phillips said.

DEAR AL: The Clinton Administration earlier this month urged Americans to write to Vice President Al Gore with suggestions on how to cut waste and inefficiency in government. But Gore isn’t the only one who’s looking for ideas from the public. Lawndale wants its citizens to help improve local government too.

Unfortunately, a month after a suggestion box was installed in the lobby at City Hall, the ideas aren’t exactly pouring in. According to Lawndale senior management analyst Tom Devereux, whose job it is to empty the box, so far there have been only three suggestions--and one of those was of a type city officials call “non-constructive.”

“It was a ‘fold it up and go home’ sort of thing,” Devereux said. “We’ve gotten one of those. Another one was a good suggestion. It was about recycling aluminum products”--that is, soft drink cans from city employee lounge areas. And the third suggestion? Neither Devereux nor City Manager Patrick P. Importuna can remember what it was about. “I haven’t thrown it away or anything,” Importuna said. “I just can’t recall right now what it was.”

Statistically speaking, however, Lawndale is doing better than Gore in the suggestion department, with one suggestion for every 9,000 people in the city. A spokeswoman for Gore’s office said the exact number of suggestions he has received is not available, but she estimated it is in the hundreds. If accurate, that means Gore has received less than one suggestion for every 125,000 people in the country.

SMOOTH SKATING: Along Hermosa Beach’s glorious Strand, there are thrills, chills, and--perhaps, after a public works project is completed--no more spills. A $659,000, state-funded project to resurface the Strand between Herondo and 24th streets will get under way Monday and should be completed by June, according to Charlie MacDonald, public works director. The repairs were needed, he said, because the pathway was aging and starting to fall apart. During the project, cyclists, roller skaters and other Strand users will be detoured onto Beach Drive, he said. Had there been any accidents on the Strand as a result of its age? “No,” MacDonald said. “But it should look nicer.”

HAIL TO THE CHIEF: Not Clinton. But President Fidel V. Ramos of the Philippines. For the past few months the Filipino community in the South Bay has been abuzz with rumors that Ramos would drop in during a state visit to the United States in the spring. In its debut issue, PAA Action Line, a newsletter published by Carson’s Philippine American Alliance, went as far as including the visit (specifically to Veterans Park in Carson) in its April calendar.

Mayor Pro Tem Peter Fajardo, a Filipino-American, reportedly “will host President Ramos’ stop-over in coordination with the Philippine Consulate General of Los Angeles,” according to an article in the newsletter.

But editor Carayo Caoile now cautions that the visit is tentative, and the latest word from sources in Manila is that the trip would not occur until May or June. April is out. A spokesman for the Philippine Consulate in Los Angeles was even more wary, saying Ramos hadn’t even scheduled a visit to the United States yet, although the president does plan to meet Clinton sometime this year.

If such a visit did come about, spokesman Roy Gorre said, Los Angeles and perhaps Carson would be possible stopovers. California--with 733,931 Filipinos as of the 1990 Census--has the largest concentration of Filipinos outside the Philippines. The highest concentration of Filipinos is in Southern California, including large populations in Carson and other South Bay cities.

BALLOT DROPOUT: The already slender field in the Inglewood school board elections, set for April 6, has grown even slimmer with the departure from the ballot of Lewis L. Lester.

Lester, a full-time college student, was one of two candidates who filed to run against incumbent school board member Joseph T. Rouzan Jr. Lester was disqualified after failing to get enough signatures from registered voters on his filing petition. The only challenger in the race against Rouzan is Dexter A. Henderson.

QUOTE OF THE WEEK

“Between Friday and Monday we sell everything in the store and then have to restock.”

--Garth Gaines, co-owner of a gun shop in Torrance, speaking of the rush to buy weapons.

LAST WEEK’S CITY HALL HIGHLIGHTS

El Segundo: Construction started on a state-of-the-art water reclamation plant, which will turn sewer water into gray water, the kind that’s suitable for industrial and landscape use but not for human consumption. Construction of the West Basin Municipal Water District plant is expected to be completed by fall, 1994; one of its first hookups will be to El Segundo’s golf course.

Inglewood: Mayor Edward Vincent joined with Councilmen Anthony Scardenzan and Jose Fernandez to reject a motion to have City Council meetings televised on cable television. Councilmen Daniel K. Tabor and Garland Hardeman wanted the meetings aired.

THIS WEEK’S CITY HALL HIGHLIGHTS

Inglewood: A candidates forum will be sponsored jointly Thursday by the Inglewood-Airport Chamber of Commerce and the League of Women Voters of the South Bay. The forum will take place at Crozier Junior High School in Inglewood, 151 N. Grevillea Ave., from 7 to 9 p.m. The election is April 6.