ELECTIONS : Issues Abound in Hawthorne Races : Candidates: Voters on Tuesday will choose a new mayor, two council members and a city clerk.

One candidate recommends condominium conversion. Another wants a nude-dancing club closed. A third calls for neighborhood crime watches.

There is no shortage of proposals in Hawthorne these days, as voters prepare to fill the mayor’s post, two City Council seats and the office of city clerk. In many cases, the proposals target the same problem--the city’s worsening crime. But other issues have also emerged, ranging from taxes to the accountability of city leaders.

Mayor

Perhaps the highest-profile race is for mayor, which is guaranteed to produce a new chief executive because Mayor Steven Andersen decided to run for City Council instead of standing for reelection as mayor.

Three candidates are running for mayor. Charles W. Bookhammer, 45, the current mayor pro tem and a council member since 1983, argues that Hawthorne has been addressing the crime problem effectively. He points to the city’s decision last year to hire six more police officers.

Bookhammer says there is room for improvement, however, in the way city staff members treat businesses.

“We have to get our city staff to realize they have to be business-friendly,” he said. “Right now, they are abrupt with people who come here applying for permits, and they aren’t really supportive in helping them with the licensing process. They have to be business-friendly to fill in the spaces on Hawthorne Boulevard.”

Bookhammer, a deputy county supervisor, has received endorsements from Supervisor Yvonne Brathwaite Burke and former Supervisor Kenneth Hahn. He has raised $17,000, of which $11,000 came from his pocket.

Rival candidate Carol Mayer, a real estate broker, argues that Hawthorne residents live in fear of crime and will continue to do so unless the city promotes more community involvement in crime prevention.

“We have a lot of segmentation, and I believe we have to unite the whole city,” she said. Mayer, 52, has raised about $9,000 in campaign contributions. She advocates the creation of “community forums” where residents can meet and discuss ideas for making neighborhoods safer.

“Once we have the community going, then we can get together and start volunteer programs like Neighborhood Watch,” she said.

The third mayoral candidate, City Councilman Larry Guidi, 35, says longtime city officials like Bookhammer have forgotten the interests of the people.

“The old way of doing business in this city doesn’t work anymore,” said Guidi, an executive with a warehouse distribution company who was first elected to the council in 1991.

If elected mayor, Guidi says, he would consolidate city departments to save taxpayers’ money. He also plans to have meetings with officials of neighboring cities such as Lawndale, Inglewood and Redondo Beach to find out how they are solving problems shared by South Bay cities.

But Hawthorne’s problems, Guidi said, boil down to unaccountability on the part of city leaders. “That is why I’m running . . . no one is willing to take responsibility,” he said.

Guidi has been endorsed by Assemblyman Curtis Tucker Jr. (D-Inglewood) and state Sen. Diane Watson (D-Los Angeles). He has raised $14,000 for his campaign.

City Council

Eight candidates are vying for the two City Council seats up for election this year. Steven Andersen, an attorney, said his 10 years of service as a councilman and mostly recently as mayor have been fruitful. Andersen said he decided not to run for reelection as mayor in order to have more time for his family and law practice.

“I don’t think a shift is needed,” he said of the council’s current direction. “I want to emphasize that I voted against new taxes,” referring to the city’s extension this fall of a utility users’ tax to pay for 15 additional police officers.

Blame for the city’s problems, he said, does not lie with city officials, but with the economy. “When you go to other cities, you see the same problems,” he said. “To focus the blame on us is just a campaign tactic.”

Andersen, 51, has been endorsed by Supervisor Burke and the Los Angeles County Federation of Labor (AFL-CIO) Council on Political Education. He has raised $30,000 for his campaign.

David M. York, the only council incumbent running, says the campaign has been tainted by many “exaggerated, distorted statements.”

When asked if he thinks the city is better off today than when he joined the City Council in 1983, York, 56, agreed with Andersen, saying it is unfair to blame Hawthorne’s social and economic ills on city leaders.

“There have been job losses due to the demise of the aerospace industry, real estate values have taken a downturn, and then there’s the recession,” he said. “It’s unrealistic and unfair to put all that on the City Council. I can’t think of one city government that is not going through budget constraints.”

York, an environmental management consultant, said he has been involved on committees that are seeking to attract business to Hawthorne, and he plans to continue that effort if elected to a fifth term. He has raised $8,000 in campaign funds.

Challenger Ginny Lambert, 61, who served on the council from 1983 to 1991, is taking aim at the three longtime council members, Andersen, Bookhammer and York. She calls them a “self-serving voting bloc that doesn’t take the community at large into consideration.”

A retired aerospace employee, Lambert said that if city officials had used tax monies more judiciously, they would have had more money available to hire police and “we wouldn’t have the crime we have now.” She added: “That is why you have all these (candidates) standing in line to replace them.”

Lambert has raised $3,500.

Another challenger, Martha Bails, 52, an executive planning adviser for Rockwell International, said she is running because people are tired of taxes such as the utility users’ levy.

“People are leaving the city because of all the problems and a lack of leadership. People want a change,” said Bails.

Bails, who ran unsuccessfully for council in 1991, said that if elected she will seek consolidation of city services, but without eliminating jobs. In addition, she said she would seek the opinions of city employees on ways to streamline services.

Bails has raised $1,100 from contributions and financed an additional $3,900 herself.

Candidate Pablo Catano, 53, is a newcomer to city politics. Like all of Hawthorne’s council and mayoral candidates, he agrees that crime should be the city’s primary concern. He said a community advisory council, made up of business people, youth groups, educators and parents, could meet to discuss crime prevention measures and make recommendations to city officials.

The current council, Catano charged, is deaf to the community’s concerns.

“They come here two days a month for the council meetings, and they don’t know what’s happening in the community,” he said. Catano had raised about $4,000 for his campaign, and has been endorsed by Sen. Theresa Hughes (D-Inglewood) and Assemblyman Tucker.

Another candidate in the council race, 23-year-old El Camino College student Mali D. Currington, is hoping to become the council’s youngest member and its first African-American. Currington asserts that overcrowding resulting from the construction of numerous apartment buildings in Hawthorne in the 1970s and 1980s has contributed to crime in certain parts of the city.

“The apartments attract a lot of transients, people who don’t care about the community, people who don’t pay taxes,” he said. “If we want to lower the crime rate and attract business, we have to stabilize the community. A condominium conversion would significantly reduce that problem.”

Currington has raised $1,387. He has been endorsed by the Los Angeles County Democratic Party and Sen. Watson.

Candidate James Radek, 47, is a city parks and recreation employee who says he decided to run when the mayor began proposing cutbacks in city services earlier this year. He says more police are needed, and he does not rule out tax increases as a way to pay for them.

“People don’t want to shop at the Hawthorne mall for fear it’s unsafe,” he said.

Radek has raised $600 and is endorsed by the Hawthorne Municipal Employees Assn.

The eighth council candidate, Francis Stiglich, is a longtime community activist who argues that expansion of Bare Elegance, a nude club on Imperial Highway, represents all that is wrong with the current City Council.

“Getting rid of the Bare Elegance,” said Stiglich, 75, “will cut down crime.”

Stiglich, who has not sought contributions, has spent $700.

City Clerk

In the city clerk’s race, incumbent Richard L. Mansfield, 59, is running against newcomer Daniel Juarez, 40.

Mansfield, who was appointed city manager in March, 1992, after the resignation of Patrick Keller, points to his implementation of a new records retrieval system. He also touts his role in calling in the district attorney’s office last year to investigate alleged voter registration fraud in Hawthorne.

Mansfield has raised $2,000.

Juarez, an audit manager, said that if elected he would try to further streamline the operations of the city clerk’s office. He has raised $3,000.

MAYOR

C. Bookhammer

Carol Mayer

Larry Guidi

CITY CLERK

Richard Mansfield

Daniel Juarez

CITY COUNCIL

Steven Andersen

Martha Bails

Pablo Catano

Mali Currington

Ginny Lambert

James Radek

Francis Stiglich

David York