Mayor-Elect in Pasadena Vows to Unify City

Pasadena’s first mayor-elect in 88 years, seeking to unite the city in the wake of a divisive campaign, vowed Wednesday to embrace the entire community.

Bill Bogaard reached out to Mayor Chris Holden’s supporters in the predominantly minority northwest area of Pasadena, promising to be a mayor for the entire community and not just the wealthy, vote-rich neighborhoods that helped his campaign achieve the 61% victory Tuesday.

“I intend to reach out to every community and interest group in the coming months,” said Bogaard, a USC law professor and attorney who last set foot in City Hall as mayor 13 years ago. “I will meet people in every neighborhood.”

While congratulating Bogaard, Holden said the mayor-elect may be out of touch with Pasadena’s diversity.

“I think he is going to have to realize how much the city has changed. He’ll have to reach out to the entire community. He hasn’t yet,” Holden said.

Meanwhile in Compton’s elections Tuesday, anti-tax sentiments and resentment over state control of local schools doomed a levy for more police and a school bond issue.

State administrators of the Compton Unified School District had tried for a third time to pass a $107-million school renovation bond, but more than 71% of voters rejected the measure.

Administrators in the district, where schools have been under state control for the last six years, believed the third time would be the charm for a bond issue, because it had failed by just 88 votes in the last election.

But bond opponents made the issue a desire to return the school district to local control. “It’s a mandate,” said bond opponent Carolyn Stokes. “We want the state the hell out of here.”

However, administrators said the bond fell victim to low turnout and confusion. In a controversial move, City Clerk Charles Davis labeled both the school bond and the special assessment as Measure C and placed them on separate ballots.

The second measure, a special tax assessment that would have paid for 75 new police officers, was rejected by 89% of voters.

Residents in both cities also elected other officials Tuesday.

In Compton’s City Council District 1, voters chose incumbent Delores Zurita with 55% over Wendy Stallworth-Tait with 30%. Zurita campaigned against both the school bond and the levy. She said, “Taxes are already higher than they should be.”

In that city’s Council District 4--where no candidate finished with the necessary 50% of the vote plus one--there will be a June 2 runoff between Amen Rahh and Fred Cressel.

In Pasadena, Chamber of Commerce President Steve Haderlein received 58.9% of the votes for the District 4 council seat, beating Tim Price, who received 40.8%.

Voters angry at the Pasadena Unified schools’ poor performance ousted school board incumbent George Van Alstine, replacing him with Altadena banker Tommy McMullins. Van Alstine was the top vote-getter in the primary but after the weak showing of some Los Angeles Unified school board incumbents last week, momentum swung to McMullins, who won 51.5% to 47.8%.

Pasadena’s elections were the most expensive in city history, with the candidates, including eight others who competed in the primary, spending more than $700,000. Holden alone spent about $300,000.

Despite the expenditures, political consultant Joe Scott said, Holden failed to get his message across to voters, while Bogaard’s message of civility and preventing big-city politics in Pasadena resonated.

The son of Los Angeles Councilman Nate Holden also hurt his own image, political observers said, when his campaign received more than $45,000 from business owners with development projects in the Koreatown section of his father’s council district.

The combination of the contributions and his wife’s trial next week on charges of felony sex with a minor were too much for Holden to overcome, said R. Michael Alvarez, an associate professor of political science at Caltech. Holden’s wife, Michelle, has pleaded not guilty to the charges.