Pasadena Mayoral Race Forced to April Runoff

Former Pasadena Mayor Bill Bogaard emerged as the clear front-runner in the city’s first mayoral election in 88 years, but his April runoff opponent will not be known until at least Friday, officials said.

With 1,700 absentee ballots yet to be counted from Tuesday’s election, Mayor Chris Holden leads Councilwoman Ann-Marie Villicana by only 179 votes for a spot in the runoff against Bogaard, who fell short of the 50% plus one needed to win the office outright.

While champagne corks popped at the Bogaard campaign party on election night, the adrenaline-pumped supporters of both Holden and Villicana went to bed Tuesday not knowing if their candidate was still in the race.

The key factor in absentee votes will be where they come from: the wealthier neighborhoods tend to favor Villicana, while Holden’s stronghold is the more urban northwest Pasadena.

Both candidates said Wednesday that they are confident they will face Bogaard in the April 20 contest.

“I am excited about the opportunity of being in the runoff,” said commercial real estate broker Holden, the 38-year-old son of Los Angeles City Councilman Nate Holden.

Villicana, 32, an attorney and also a real estate broker, said the race is far from over. “I still have a very strong chance of being in that runoff,” she said.

Whoever makes the runoff against Bogaard will face an uphill battle.

The 60-year-old law professor and attorney garnered 42.8% of the vote, while Holden so far received 25.3% and Villicana 24.4%.

“We’re hitting the ground running. We are going to maintain the momentum until the April 20 runoff,” said Bogaard, a councilman in the 1980s.

Bogaard said his campaign got a boost from last-minute mailers emphasizing his views on restricting development throughout the city--a position, he said, that contrasted sharply with his opponents.

But Holden and Villicana Wednesday labeled those mailers “hit pieces.”

The three front-runners spent nearly $500,000--the most ever for a city election. But political observers say the election turned on Bogaard’s coalition of neighborhood groups and former mayors. That support, observers said, overwhelmed the labor-backed Holden and issue-oriented Republican Villicana.

Holden, with union members walking precincts and a deluge of campaign materials, was expected to be the top vote-getter.

“This is a stunning defeat for organized labor who supported Holden,” said Villicana consultant Joe Scott, who had expected his candidate to face Holden in a runoff.

Holden said he was “darn lucky to be still in the race, because our base didn’t turn out and support across the city saved us.”

Although candidates did not raise the issue publicly, political insiders said Holden’s campaign also was hurt by the widespread publicity over his wife, Michelle, who faces a March 29 trial on felony charges of having sex with a teenage boy. She has denied the charges.

Race may have also been a factor. Holden, an African American, and Villicana, a Latina, are running for the top elected office in a city that is predominantly white, both in its population and its political hierarchy. Pasadena is 46.6% white, 27.3% Latino and 17.8% African American, and a majority of its seven-member council is white.

“In 1999, race was an issue in voting in certain parts of this community. That is the reality,” contended Joe Hopkins, publisher of the Pasadena Journal, the city’s black newspaper. Meanwhile, in four council races, incumbents Paul Little and Joyce Streator easily won reelection. They were joined by former federal prosecutor Steve Madison, who won District 6.

In East Pasadena District 4, Chamber of Commerce President Steve Haderlein will square off against activist Tim Price.

In the race for two school board seats, incumbent Jackie Jacobs won easily, but incumbent George Van Alstine faces a runoff with banker Tommy McMullins.