SOUTHLAND ELECTIONS : LOS ANGELES...

Candidates in at least one of four Los Angeles Board of Education races Tuesday night appeared headed for a June runoff, as the broad number of candidates and some searing controversies fragmented the vote.

With almost all of the votes counted, only the two incumbents running were assured of second terms on the board: Jeff Horton, the gay board member who fought off a feisty challenge by conservative Christians, and Barbara Boudreaux, who had drawn no opponents.

The competition had been unexpectedly hot in some races, especially in view of the meager spoils for major responsibilities: annual compensation of $24,000 for controlling a $4-billion budget that affects more than 630,000 schoolchildren.

* In the 5th District race, where issues of ethnicity and labor politics split key endorsements, parent volunteer Lucia Rivera had pulled ahead, but was headed toward a June runoff against high school teacher David Tokofsky for the seat now held by Leticia Quezada. The district reaches from the Eastside to the northeast San Fernando Valley.

Rivera, a political novice who quit her job several years ago to volunteer at her son’s school, said she felt vindicated by her strong showing.

“I know that people in our community understand that parents have to be recognized, that a parent’s voice needs to be heard and that the time for that is now,” she said.

Tokofsky, a social science teacher at Marshall High, acknowledged that he would face an uphill battle in a runoff because he trailed Rivera by a wide margin, but said he hopes to draw the votes that had gone to the other two teachers in the race.

“I would’ve preferred to have seen it at least tighter,” he said.

* In the 7th District, incumbent Warren Furutani’s handpicked successor, adult school Principal George Kiriyama, was still struggling to maintain his slim majority against attorney Kathleen Fleming Dixon, retired school administrator Sid Brickman and Xerox manager Laura Ann Richardson. The 7th District includes much of the South Bay.

Kiriyama expressed optimism, saying, “I’m holding on.”

* In the 3rd District, Horton was well ahead against contractor Peter Ford and nurse Linda Jones, who had campaigned against him and his advocacy for gay students. That district climbs from mid-Wilshire over the hills to North Hollywood.

Reached at his victory party, Horton said, he was relieved because “a runoff would have been very difficult and I know it would have summoned resources from a lot of places.”

Meanwhile, only one of the four open seats on the Los Angeles Community College District Board of Trustees remained too close to call. Incumbents Kenneth S. Washington, Julia Wu and David Lopez-Lee were all well ahead of their opponents. The race for the seat vacated last year when Wally Knox was elected to the state Assembly, which drew six candidates, will most likely end in a runoff.

In the Los Angeles Unified School District, the 5th District seat attracted the most candidates of the eight school board races this year, partly because of the late announcement by Quezada that she would step down after two board terms.

Initially, 15 people prepared to run, including two anticipated front-runners: Quezada’s former deputy and a well-known union officer. When those two dropped out for personal reasons, the race was left wide open--and garnering endorsements became even more crucial.

But endorsements were complicated because the seat had been designed under 1992 redistricting to favor Latino candidates. Rivera, who is Latina, gained the backing of most of the city’s Latino political leadership. Tokofsky--who is white, but fluent in Spanish--was endorsed by the teachers union, whose leaders agonized about giving the nod to a non-Latino. It was the only race in which the union issued an endorsement this year.

The 3rd District gained attention as a testing ground for conservative inroads onto the generally liberal board. Horton, a former teacher who announced that he is gay after his 1991 election, was attacked by Jones and Ford for allegedly catering to homosexual students. Horton, in turn, defended his record and sought to paint his opponents as operatives of the radical right.

Times special correspondent Jon Garcia contributed to this story.