Voters Reject Bid to Raise Mayor’s Pay : Election: It’s the lowest April turnout in eight years. Two council incumbents are forced into a runoff June 6.

If this week’s municipal election in Compton was a test of Mayor Omar Bradley’s popularity--as many considered it to be--the mayor lost without even running.

Voters overwhelmingly rejected proposals, put on the ballot at Bradley’s insistence, to make the mayor and council jobs full time, accompanied by hefty pay increases.

Bradley, who would have received an annual salary of $80,000 under the full-time proposal, reiterated his vow not to run again since voters have rejected the measures. He is up for reelection in two years.

“I’m not going to sacrifice my family’s fiscal position for people who don’t want to compensate me for my work,” Bradley said Tuesday. “I won’t be running for this office again.”

The council and mayor will continue to be paid $24,000 a year.

On a rainy election day that produced the lowest April voter turnout in eight years, two council incumbents emerged as the top vote-getters, but were forced into runoff elections June 6 against their nearest challengers. Latino candidates, who had been expected to make a strong challenge, failed to make the runoffs.

Council members Ronald J. Green and Jane D. Robbins outpaced their challengers by wide margins, but neither incumbent achieved more than 50% of the vote, which would have given them a clear victory.

Robbins, 75, who has spent 19 years in the 4th District seat, will face Fred Cressel, 57, owner of a stationery store and restaurant. Robbins, who stuck with her longstanding policy of not campaigning actively, received 41% of the vote, while Cressel received 28%.

Robbins made it clear Tuesday, however, that she was upset over charges that Cressel leveled at her in a campaign mailer. “He called me an old woman, said I didn’t know what I was doing,” Robbins said. “But I can probably beat him.”

Cressel, who ran for the 2nd District council seat two years ago but lost, said he hopes that Robbins decides to wage a more active campaign in the runoff.

“If she does campaign, it will only hurt her,” Cressel said. “Then, people would see what she’s really like.”

Green, who was appointed to the 1st District council seat two years ago after Bradley vacated it to become mayor, will face Delores Zurita, the executive director of a senior nutrition program. Zurita had run unsuccessfully two years ago for City Treasurer.

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Green, who had refused to take a position on the issue of making the council positions full time, received 43% of the vote, compared to 14% for Zurita.

City Attorney Legrand Clegg II, who faced no opposition, was reelected.

An advisory ballot measure, which asked voters if they wanted a state prison built in the city, also was defeated handily.

The council campaign, which began during a period of racial strife in the city and talk of Latino unity, will end in June without a Latino candidate on the ballot.

After the videotaped beating of a Latino teen-ager by a black police officer last summer resulted in several days of protests, Latino activists formed a coalition and announced they would mount campaigns to elect the council’s first Latino members.

Since the city’s population has dramatically shifted in the last several years, and Latinos now make up more than half of the city’s residents, Latino leaders were confident of strong showings at the polls.

But instead of the raucous campaign some feared, the Latino coalition ran a low-key campaign without major fund-raising events or voter-mobilization drives. Their decision to keep the election quiet, hoping to avoid racial divisiveness, may have been a mistake, said Pedro Pallan, president of the Latinos United Coalition.

“It didn’t work. Next time, we’ll have to change tactics,” Pallan said after seeing coalition candidates Gorgonio Sanchez Jr. in the 1st District and Lorraine Cervantes in the 4th District finish out of contention for the runoff election. Both finished third.

“Next time, we will have to mobilize the community and raise a lot more funds,” Pallan said.

Several challengers who did not make it into the runoffs said Tuesday night they will stick to their pre-election promise to support challengers who made the runoff--Zurita and Cressel.

“We’re going to walk the pavement until we drop dead in our boots,” Cervantes said, pledging her support to Cressel’s campaign. “Things have got to change.”

There was one significant election day glitch.

A polling place opened three hours late after a precinct inspector who held all the ballots and voting supplies forgot to show up for duty Tuesday. Eight people were turned away at the polling site in the 900 block of East Rosecrans Avenue before other ballots and equipment could be found.

City Clerk Charles Davis announced the problem as the vote count began Tuesday night, prompting concerns among some camps that the missing supplies, including unmarked ballots, could have been used to stuff other ballot boxes.

Davis, who refused to identify the inspector by name, said he went to her house Tuesday after a voter appeared at City Hall to complain, but found her home vacant.

“I went through her trash looking for my supplies--nothing,” Davis said.

About 1,000 ballots were included in the missing precinct supplies, along with three voting machines and the voting roster, Davis said.

The ballots and equipment were discovered Wednesday morning, still in an officially sealed box, when Davis went back to the missing inspector’s home and found her there. In the confusion of moving to another house, the woman forgot to appear for work, Davis said.

This year’s turnout, of about 14%, was the lightest since a 9% turnout in 1987. Voter turnout has ranged between 20% and 23% in April elections in recent years.

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

ELECTION RETURNS Counting of late and absentee ballots could alter the outcome in some races. COMPTON 36 of 36 Precincts Reporting

City Council (In each race, the two top finishers will meet in a runoff since no candidate won more than 50% of the vote.)

District 1 CANDIDATE: VOTE (%) Alfonso (Al) Cabrera: 238 (5.1) Walter Goodin: 422 (9.1) Ronald J. Green*: 2,053 (43.9) Toi Jackson: 187 (4.0) Stephen J. Randle: 531 (11.4) Gorgonio Sanchez Jr.: 583 (12.5) Delores Zurita: 659 (14.1)

District 4 CANDIDATE: VOTE (%) Richard Bonner: 554 (11.9) Lorraine Cervantes: 870 (18.6) Fred Cressel: 1271 (27.2) Jane D. Robbins*: 1,978 (42.3)

Measure A (Advisory) Construction of a state prison in Compton. Yes: 625 (12.9) No: 4,195 (84.1)

Measure B Full-time mayor, $80,000 annual salary. Yes: 859 (18.0) No: 3,909 (82.0)

Measure C Full-time council, $60,000 annual salary. Yes: 650 (13.6) No: 4,124 (86.4)

* Incumbent