Alarcon Claims Victory Over Protest From Hall : 7th District: Former Bradley aide appears to be first Latino to win a Valley seat. Opponent won’t concede until absentee ballots are counted.

With thousands of absentee ballots still uncounted citywide, Lyle Hall Wednesday refused to concede to Richard Alarcon, who apparently captured a northeast San Fernando Valley seat on the Los Angeles City Council by just 164 votes.

Alarcon, a former aide to Mayor Tom Bradley, evidently became the first Latino to win a council seat representing the Valley, edging Hall by less than 1% of the nearly 18,000 votes cast Tuesday in the 7th Council District, according to unofficial election results.

But Hall, a retired city fire captain, said Wednesday he is not giving in until all absentee votes are counted. City election officials said 10,000 to 20,000 votes are yet to be tabulated, and a final tally may not be posted for up to two weeks.

“I spent five years of my life on this election and I have a tremendous amount of support from volunteers and other people invested in this,” said Hall, who lost a bid for the seat in 1989. “I think we ought to wait until the votes are counted.

“As close as it is, mathematically it’s very conceivable that we’ll win. But who knows?”

Alarcon said he does not believe there are enough uncounted ballots in the 7th District to alter the election’s outcome.

“We are confident the race is over,” he said, as he received a stream of excited supporters, well-wishers and reporters at his crowded Sun Valley campaign headquarters.

The seat is being vacated by 81-year-old Councilman Ernani Bernardi, who retires at the end of this month. The district is a heavily Latino enclave that includes all of Pacoima and parts of Mission Hills, North Hollywood, Sun Valley, Panorama City, Arleta, Van Nuys and Lake View Terrace.

During the campaign, Alarcon, 39, pitched himself as a home-grown champion of local residents and their concerns. He repeatedly stressed his upbringing in the largely blue-collar district and his participation in nearly 30 civic organizations, from Mothers Against Drunk Driving to anti-gang agencies.

Alarcon attacked Hall, 53, as a pawn of the City Hall Establishment, citing his numerous campaign donations from City Hall lobbyists and other insiders and his endorsement by prominent local politicians.

Outgunned by Hall in fund raising, Alarcon’s campaign relied heavily on a large corps of volunteers--many of them young Latinos--with little or no political experience.

On Election Day, he fielded a get-out-the-vote force of more than 200 volunteers, including numerous Latino college and high school students. Alarcon and Hall agreed the youths were a key element in Alarcon’s drawing power at the polls.

“If there was one singular, overriding aspect of the campaign that put us over, it is the fact that we brought people into the process of campaigning who have never done it before and created an enthusiasm about trying to solve community problems among people who frankly feel that this district doesn’t get its fair share and has been ignored by the city,” said Alarcon.

His first order of business as councilman-elect, he said, would be to put together an “economic recovery strategy” for the district, which is plagued by unemployment and low wages.

He also is assembling an office staff with the help of his chief campaign advisers, including campaign manager Al Avila and James Acevedo, a hospital manager and longtime friend who provided advice during the campaign.

Throughout the race, political observers said a Latino would have a hard time winning in the district. Although its population is 70% Latino, only 31% are registered voters.

Alarcon noted that in winning about half of the vote, he attracted numerous “crossover” votes from Anglos and African-Americans. As he has in the past, he played down his ethnicity as a factor in the campaign, saying most local voters do not cast ballots along racial lines.

But his apparent win surprised and delighted Latino political observers and activists, some of whom had viewed the 7th District as a “growth district” where Latino candidates would not begin to win until Latino voter registration jumped dramatically.

“I’m a little bit surprised that a Latino would be that competitive, much less win,” said Prof. Jaime Regalado, a political science professor at Cal State Los Angeles.

Ruben Rodriguez, a leader of a group that pressured the City Council last year to redraw the district’s boundaries to improve the odds for Latino candidates, said Alarcon’s showing could have a ripple effect in adjoining districts where Latinos constitute a popular majority.

He cited two East Valley legislative seats occupied by Anglos--the 39th Assembly District and the 20th state Senate district--saying Latino candidates may be encouraged to run in them by Alarcon’s success.

“This can snowball,” Rodriguez said.

Tuesday night, the election was a cliffhanger as Hall surged to an early lead and Alarcon steadily whittled away at it.

Handed a piece of paper with the unofficial vote results just after midnight, the cautious, quiet-spoken Alarcon simply smiled and shook his head as supporters burst into cheers and tears at a Sun Valley restaurant where they gathered to watch returns.

“You see--we did it,” he said as he hugged a supporter.

At his Sun Valley headquarters, Hall--who predicted to a TV reporter he would win with 58% of the vote--appeared close to tears as he faced the prospect of again losing an election.

“We’ll let democracy take its toll,” he told supporters. “Our mood shouldn’t be somber. We stayed with the issues and we stayed with what’s right. So don’t feel down. Just be proud of what we did.”

Times staff writers David Colker and Sharon Bernstein contributed to this story.