ARCADIA : Feuding Marks City Council Sessions

In the genteel community of Arcadia, where any battles usually take place on Santa Anita racetrack, the City Council chamber has become the backdrop for a war of words between the newly elected members and old hands.

New and old council members have been locking horns since a bitterly contested election last month in which two incumbents were voted out of office and three newcomers gained seats.

Fireworks began to fly at the first meeting, when new members Mary B. Young, Barbara Kuhn and Sheng Chang chose Young to be mayor, going against tradition that dictates giving the position to the mayor pro tem, in this case Councilman Dennis A. Lojeski.

“There is absolutely no communication going on between the council members. It’s a very unhealthy situation,” Lojeski said. “It deteriorated to where I made 10 phone calls to Dr. (Sheng) Chang and he didn’t return one of them.”

Councilman R. C. (Bob) Margett, whose nomination of Lojeski for mayor failed, responded by raising concerns about a new mayor unfamiliar with existing plans.

Minutes later, Lojeski chastised Chang for saying in his opening speech that the city is in financial trouble.

“Our city is not in serious trouble. Please do your homework,” Lojeski chided Chang.

At the council’s second session May 3, Lojeski and Margett refused to go along with the formality of excusing Chang, who was not in attendance. “He didn’t extend the courtesy of telling me where he was going,” Lojeski said.

Lojeski later successfully called for an investigation by the city clerk of charges of election fraud. The charges had been made by Carole Ciraulo, the wife of defeated Councilman Joseph Ciraulo, in a letter to the secretary of state and named Chang as being involved.

Throughout the election campaign, the three who eventually won had charged that the council had run down reserves while giving large pay raises to employees.

“Things will change,” Chang said optimistically. “Their memories of the election are still fresh. I expect the hostility to go away.”

Chang said that he did leave a note asking council members to excuse him May 3 because he had to attend a wedding in Japan. As to the election fraud allegations, an investigation by City Clerk June D. Alford rejected all the allegations in Ciraulo’s letter with the exception of the charge that 21 non-citizens at a retirement home had voted. Alford said federal officials are still checking records.

An Arcadia group said Tuesday it will file a legal challenge to the election result later today, the deadline for such challenges. “It has been determined that at present there is enough evidence of election fraud to file an election contest with the county clerk,” said Geri Fasching, spokeswoman for Citizens for Fair Voting and wife of defeated councilman George Fasching.