Elections to Change Tenor of Pasadena Council : Politics: Tuesday’s runoffs will replace three of the city’s most influential officeholders.

No matter who wins, the Pasadena City Council will look significantly different after voters go to the polls Tuesday to fill the seats now held by Rick Cole, Isaac Richard and Kathryn Nack.

The three council members signaled a changing of the guard at City Hall when they declined to seek reelection.

Tuesday’s vote will determine the winners in the city’s 1st, 2nd and 6th districts. The two-person runoffs in each race were set-up when none of the candidates in those districts received a majority of the votes in the March 7 primary. William M. Paparian, who faced a single challenger in the primary, won reelection to a third term.

The shadow of Richard looms in the race for the 1st District seat, with the controversial councilman admitting that he has been ripping down signs of one candidate. And accusations of racial polarization, another Richard trademark, have surfaced.

In the 2nd and 6th districts, a political newcomer and a neighborhood activist have come on strong to challenge two well-connected civic leaders who were the early favorites.

1st District

Northwest Pasadena Richard’s district figures to feature the highest spenders in the council campaign. Unlike the candidates in the other districts, Saundra L. Knox and Joyce Streator are running their operations out of full-fledged campaign offices.

As of April 1, Streator had raised $67,241 and Knox had raised $47,091, according to their campaign finance statements.

The primary was close. Knox took 42% of the vote, with Streator getting 37%, a gap between the two of just 86 votes. Streator has since won the endorsement of the only other primary candidate, Porfirio Frausto, who received 21%.

If elected, Knox and Streator say they will do pretty much the same things: work to increase business opportunities and youth programs, as well as reduce crime in the district, which has a large low-income population.

Knox is director of the nonprofit Pasadena Neighborhood Housing Services, which administers federal housing funds under contract with the city. The agency provides loans and grants to rehabilitate homes and create low-cost housing.

Streator is a retired county probation director and a former field representative to Councilman Chris Holden.

Both have drawn strong support from civic leaders and the business community. Knox is backed by Richard, as well as Danny Bakewell, Jimmy Morris and Jaylene Moseley, all developers and civic activists.

Councilman Holden and the Business and Economics Political Action Committee, the political arm of the Pasadena Chamber of Commerce, support Streator.

The race is heating up, with Streator accusing Knox of using racial polarization to get a foot up in the district, which is 46% African American.

Both Streator and Knox are black.

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The racial issue has come up in the campaign through a debate over the Pasadena Fire Department, where black firefighters have been contending that the city moved against affirmative action by suspending Fire Chief Kaya Pekerol. Knox supported, and one of her campaign aids helped organize, a recent demonstration by black firefighters in support of Pekerol, whom they laud for his affirmative action efforts.

Streator contends that Knox is just grasping for a campaign issue by slamming a department that recently won accolades from the American Civil Liberties Union for its ethnic diversity.

Knox is “inserting racism in this race when it doesn’t belong here,” Streator said. “We’re doing so much better in terms of diversity than other departments around here.”

Fire union and city officials have denied that they have sought to undermine the department’s affirmative action efforts. City Manager Philip Hawkey has said Pekerol’s suspension, which ended in January, was related to the chief’s performance.

Knox said she did not intend to polarize the community but to bring to the surface issues of concern to some area firefighters.

“If you don’t deal with problems, you don’t resolve them,” she said.

Streator also said she holds Knox responsible for “dirty tricks” such as the theft of campaign signs by Councilman Richard, a Knox supporter.

“If she’s not in control, who is?” Streator said.

Reports of Richard taking signs surfaced before the primary. Then, during a discussion of Pasadena’s sign ordinance during the council’s March 28 meeting, Richard mentioned that he had “taken a few sticks that may have been attached to a sign.”

Richard’s involvement with campaign signs took a violent turn Sunday when he and Streator’s brother, Andrew L. Ewing, fought over the placement of a Streator sign in a yard near Richard’s home. Ewing suffered a broken nose in the fight. Each man said the other started the fight. Streator said she doesn’t blame Knox for the fight.

Knox said it’s ridiculous for anyone to think that at any point she could control Richard, who was censured by his council colleagues three times in recent years for, among other things, swearing at city officials. Knox said she respects Richard for championing the causes of the black community during his tenure, but she criticizes his tactics.

“I never supported or condoned his negative behavior,” Knox said.

2nd District Central and northeast Pasadena Mark R. Nay, an architect and chairman of the city’s Design Commission, brashly announced his candidacy for the 2nd District before Councilman Rick Cole had said he would step down, and before anyone else had entered the race.

He established himself as the early front-runner by enlisting Cole’s former campaign manager, Tim Brick, and by securing support and donations from pillars of the business community. He ended up with the endorsement of the Chamber of Commerce’s PAC.

Nay promised to restore civility to the council--a swipe, of sorts, at Cole, who frequently trades barbs with Richard.

So it was quite an upset in the primary when neighborhood activist Paul Little finished with 41% of the vote to Nay’s 25%. To make matters worse for Nay, three of the defeated primary candidates--who garnered about 16% of the vote --endorsed Little. The final primary candidate, Ted Brown, who finished with 19% of the vote, has declined to make an endorsement.

“March 7 was Rick Cole’s revenge,” Nay said in a recent interview. “A lot of candidates who came in were brought in at Rick Cole’s urging. It really did blunt my momentum.”

Cole, who has not made an endorsement, denied that he had pushed other candidates into the race and disputed Nay’s analysis of the primary outcome.

“Mark has to take responsibility for his showing and not look to blame other people,” Cole said. “While he was out hustling the business community, former mayors and other groups, Paul was out hustling people in the district. Mark was talking to people who don’t vote.”

Like Nay, Little wants to improve recreation and after-school programs to engage youths and reduce crime. Both candidates also said they want to revive the sagging commercial corridors in the 2nd District, including Washington Boulevard.

Little is communications coordinator for Pasadena’s Pacific Asia Museum and a board member of the Pasadena Community Access Corp., which oversees local community cable usage. He is a longtime activist in the Bungalow Heaven Neighborhood Assn., one of the city’s best organized neighborhood groups.

Little helped establish and lives in Bungalow Heaven, the city’s only landmark district, a neighborhood of California bungalows protected against future development. Those protections, for example, require city approval for architectural changes within the district.

Nay has raised $24,916; Little $9,477, including $2,070 of his own money that he loaned to the campaign.

6th District Southwest Pasadena William J. York Jr., chairman of the city’s Planning Commission and a manager at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, was the clear front-runner among the four candidates seeking to replace Mayor Nack.

As expected, York finished first, but he won just 32% of the vote. What was surprising was the second-place finish by Ann-Marie Villicana, a 28-year-old lawyer and realtor who has never held a post on a city commission or board. She finished with 30% of the vote, just 57 votes behind York.

In the primary, Villicana benefited from support inside and outside the city for her pro-business platform. She wants to cut the red tape faced by businesses seeking to move into Pasadena and the fees paid by those already there.

In the runoff campaign, York, 51, has sought to depict Villicana as lacking the experience to handle the council job.

“You can’t get around the fact that she lives at home with her parents,” York said. “There’s an absence of life experience.”

Villicana lives with her parents in the exclusive, low-crime San Raphael neighborhood. In addition to being a Neighborhood Watch block captain, Villicana lists her service on the Polytechnic School Alumni Board and her time as a director of the Pasadena Symphony Assn. as key experiences.

Villicana discounts York’s attack and counters that she’s spent more time than he has walking neighborhoods and listening to residents while drumming up support for her campaign.

She describes York as a status quo, one-issue candidate dedicated to protecting the hillsides of the affluent Linda Vista/Annandale area from overzealous hillside development and limiting use of the Rose Bowl.

York contends that the stadium has been used too often for large events that attract 80,000 or more people. He wants to come up with a new formula to encourage a move toward moderate-sized events--20,000 to 40,000 people--to produce revenue while minimizing the traffic and noise imposed on nearby residents.

York’s support in recent years for ordinances that strictly limit hillside development has damaged his image in the eyes of the business community.

But his stance on neighborhood preservation has won him the support of key members of his neighborhood association. The influential Linda Vista/Annandale Assn. does not officially endorse council candidates, but the current president, Nina Chomsky, is York’s campaign treasurer, and the organization’s former president, Marilyn DeSimone, is co-chair of his campaign committee.

Villicana has been endorsed by Los Angeles County Supervisor Michael Antonovich and Los Angeles City Councilman Richard Alatorre, whom she describes as family friends, as well as the Pasadena Chamber of Commerce’s PAC, the Pasadena Assn. of Realtors and the Pasadena Police Officers Assn.

Villicana is ahead in fund raising with $36,351, including $6,050 she loaned to her campaign, whereas York reported a fund of $19,121, including $5,000 he loaned to the campaign.