LOCAL ELECTIONS : Burbank School Bond Trails in Early Returns

A $100-million bond referendum to rebuild Burbank public schools appeared to be failing in early returns Tuesday night.

With the absentee ballots counted, the referendum was receiving less than the two-thirds majority it needed to succeed.

The Burbank school board, with the backing of the city, major employers and parent groups, pitched the $100-million bond referendum to voters, explaining that rebuilding the schools would cost the average homeowner a little more than $33 a year.

In the closing days before the election, the bond campaign swung into high gear, with two phone banks totaling about 80 volunteers calling to make sure that voters who supported the bond went to the polls.

“We’re confident that we’ve done as much as we could have done,” board President Elena Hubbell said before the vote.

Those who oppose the bond referendum criticize the figures drawn up by the district’s financial experts and say that the $33-per-year cost on a home worth $101,000--the average property value in Burbank--is based on overly optimistic assumptions of how much property values will grow and could cost taxpayers far more.

At the center of the campaign is Burbank High School, a cramped and haphazardly built facility with some buildings that date back to the 1920s. The school needs to be rebuilt because of a poor design that gives few options to expand to accommodate overcrowding, and because of a deterioration faced by all the schools in the district, school officials have said.

John Burroughs High School, also dating back to the 1920s, would undergo major renovations, and every other school in the Burbank Unified School District would be upgraded and modernized if the bond referendum passed.

The schools have such problems as leaking roofs, falling tiles, poor lighting and sewage backup. Many classrooms have no air-conditioning and sometimes become so hot that computers shut down.

The school board and district have put together a $138-million plan to rebuild the schools, with $100 million coming from the bond referendum, another $23 million donated by the city of Burbank and $15 million coming in state aid.

But the school board voted to go ahead with the bond referendum because the $33-per-year cost for the average homeowner fit with the results of a survey taken in June that showed that nearly two-thirds of voters--the majority needed to pass a bond referendum--would support rebuilding of schools if it did not cost them more than $39 a year in extra taxes.

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In other Los Angeles County voting, early returns showed Long Beach Mayor Ernie Kell struggling for reelection in one of 50 local elections Tuesday, contests in which voters were weighing in on everything from school bonds and smoking bans to potentially historic reconfigurations of city councils.

In West Hollywood, there was the potential for the first gay majority on the council since 1986, but early returns cast doubt on that prospect.

Elsewhere in the county, there were numerous opportunities for ethnic groups to attain or increase political power. But in one case, Monterey Park, final unofficial returns showed that voters decided not to make their city the first in California to have an Asian American majority on its council.

Long Beach’s elections loomed significant because of what the results could say about the city’s direction and because of the latest debate on smoking in public places.

In the race for the city’s top post, Kell, 65, was bidding to remain the only mayor Long Beach has known since voters began electing their top official in 1988. However, with about 20% of the vote counted late Tuesday, Kell was running fifth in a field of 13.

“We’ve had six good years. It’s not the end of the world if we don’t win,” he told a supporter as the early returns were announced.

Kell’s well-financed challengers--those raising more than $100,000--were council members Ray Grabinski and Jeffrey A. Kellogg; former Long Beach City College President Beverly O’Neill; redevelopment board member Don Westerland and Belmont Shore businessman Frank Colonna.

If no candidate won more than 50% of the vote, which given initial returns seemed almost certain, the two top finishers will meet in a runoff.

Much of the campaign centered on the need to stem crime, create jobs, unite the city’s increasingly diverse neighborhoods and establish an international image for the city, which has seen its economy tumble as the Navy and defense contractors have scaled back or closed.

In other Long Beach elections, two Latinas were making strong bids to become the council’s first Latino members. In the 1st District, Jenny Oropeza, the first Latino elected to the Long Beach school board, waged a well-financed effort. In the 7th District, Tonia Reyes Uranga was considered a leading contender to succeed Grabinski, who is giving up his council seat to run for mayor.

In the 3rd District, incumbent Douglas S. Drummond faced three challengers, two of whom decided to run after Drummond made anti-gay remarks during a conservative forum last fall. Drummond said gays did not concern him because they were dying from AIDS, and he supported Cuba’s policy of quarantining people with the disease. Drummond later voted with the council majority to censure himself and offered an apology.

Drumond took an early lead in the race.

As in the mayor’s contest, the two top finishers in each council race will meet in a runoff if no candidate wins more than 50% of the vote.

Long Beach voters also were deciding whether to ban smoking in all businesses used by the public, except in patio restaurant areas and in bars where up to a third of the seating could be set aside for smokers. Very early returns showed Measure K winning.

Surprisingly, the measure has received little attention in a city where wars over proposed smoking bans have generated big news in years past. The council backed down from a 1991 ordinance to outlaw smoking in restaurants after a petition drive financed by the tobacco industry collected enough signatures to put the issue on the ballot. Last July, the council passed a less sweeping ordinance. Once again, a coalition of smoking interests launched a petition drive. So council members, all nonsmokers, decided to put the issue before voters.

In nearby Lomita, voters ousted council incumbents Robert Hargrave, Peter J. Rossick and Chuck Taylor.

Times staff writers Ted Johnson, Ken Ellingwood, Duke Helfand and Richard Winton contributed to this story.