Local Voting Focuses on Tax, Bond Measures

In a mixed bag of election day results involving pocketbook issues, voters rejected a utility tax in Artesia, retained a similar levy in Hermosa Beach and, for the first time in Arcadia’s history, approved a municipal bond measure.

Across Los Angeles County, scores of cities also held elections involving school bonds, city councils, water districts and school and community college boards.

Voters in Arcadia, by a 3-1 margin, approved the borrowing of $8 million for a new police station. “This is a credit to the voters of Arcadia who recognized the need for a police station,” said Vince Foley, campaign chairman. “We were very focused in our message: Your police officers need a good facility to provide the best service possible.”

Although Arcadia voters have approved school bonds in the past, municipal tax measures had routinely failed. Two recent attempts involved a special assessment for fire service in 1997 and a proposed utility tax in 1998.

Incomplete results elsewhere suggested that school renovation bonds in the Antelope Valley, Santa Clarita’s William S. Hart Union High School District and the Mt. San Antonio Community College District were falling short of the two-thirds majority required for passage. In contrast, a $40-million bond issue in the El Monte City School District passed.

Not all of Tuesday’s ballot measures were pocketbook proposals, however.

In chaparral-covered Agoura Hills, where 40% of the land is undeveloped, a ballot measure to preserve open space won by a 9-1 margin.

Hoping to preserve the city’s small-town charms, residents approved stripping the City Council of its power to change the designation of land deemed open space. Now voters will make those decisions at the ballot box.

In Artesia, the measure to establish the utility tax was rejected by a 3-1 margin. Farther west, in Hermosa Beach, the move to repeal the existing utility tax fell short, keeping the levy in place.

Hermosa Beach tax critics had argued that the 6% surcharge on utility bills was supposed to be temporary when it was established more than a decade ago. They also charged that the city had squandered the $1.7 million a year the tax generates and that the surcharge has scared away new business.

City officials, however, said repeal of the tax would have been a catastrophe. Revenue from the tax accounts for 14% of the city budget and is earmarked for sewer and emergency services. Eliminating the tax would have forced officials to cut police and fire services, they said, maintaining that streets and sewers would have suffered as well.

In a number of races controversy drew voters to the polls.

In Palmdale, early returns had Kevin W. Carney and Mike Dispenza leading a field of 13 candidates for two four-year terms on the City Council.

Carney, a Los Angeles County sheriff’s sergeant, was arrested last week on suspicion of molesting a 14-year-old girl. Supporters and opponents alike had predicted that the arrest would doom Carney’s chances. A 23-year veteran of the Sheriff’s Department, he was once a supervisor of the agency’s child-abuse investigations unit.

Five candidates competed for one seat on the embattled Pasadena Unified School District board, and nearly complete results showed that the race was headed for a runoff, with no candidates winning a clear majority.

Gadfly and longtime district critic Rene Amy and attorney Alex P. Aghajanian were slightly ahead. Amy, a 38-year-old father of two school-age children, has badgered Pasadena Unified bureaucrats with news conferences and a World Wide Web site.

The tone of the race was set by mounting frustration over low student test scores and complaints about unresponsive bureaucracy. The adjoining community of Altadena recently raised the issue of seceding from the district, and a wealthy benefactor decided to stop his financial gifts to the district, saying it was not headed in the right direction.

The seat up for grabs was vacated by retiring board member George Padilla, and it will be open again in March 2001. Though the election is for a short term, the five candidates figured that incumbency would help in reelection.

If no one candidate gets more than 50% of the vote, a runoff election will be held.

In Lynwood incumbents Louis Byrd and Arturo Reyes defeated five other candidates for two seats on the City Council.

That race was the area’s most bare-fisted campaign, with politicians in the working-class city slinging allegations of corruption, child abuse and an election-related drive-by shooting. The ferocity of the race even spurred one candidate to shop around for a bulletproof vest.

One of the more explosive accusations was made by candidate Maria Romero in council chambers. She accused one slate of candidates of plotting a drive-by shooting of their opponents.

Romero said she and three other candidates were walking precincts one evening this month when a gunman pulled up in a battered Ford Escort and fired at them. Nobody was hurt in the alleged attack, and sheriff’s detectives said they had no suspects and no leads. The candidates whom Romero accused denied any wrongdoing and dismissed the claim as an election ploy.

Romero finished fifth in the seven-person race.

Edwin Jacinto, the treasurer candidate who believed that he needed the bulletproof vest, was targeted in a spate of dirty campaign fliers. He lost to Iris Pygatt for the position.

Although the Lynwood race was the only one in the area that featured claims of flying lead, it wasn’t the sole campaign in which emotions flared.

In Claremont, where school board elections are traditionally staid affairs, the race was stirred up by two candidates who once associated with white supremacists. Richard W. Bunck, 54, admitted to suiting up as a neo-Nazi in his youth, while Pastor John Hale McGee, 64, said he mingled with hatemongers only to bring them to God.

Under attack by opponents and the local newspaper, the pair attempted to play down reports about their involvement.

Few believed that either could win the two seats up for election; Bunck ran for City Council in March and lost badly.

On Tuesday, among five candidates, McGee and Bunck finished fourth and fifth, with less than 4% of the vote each. The two incumbents were returned to office.

Another bruising campaign played out in Beverly Hills, where members of the Board of Education were locked in a lengthy and highly visible struggle over management of the school district.

Four candidates vied for three open board seats in a race that some officials described as a feud. Issues that gave rise to the battle included this summer’s firing of Supt. Robert Pellicone, who was accused of racking up more than $6,000 in questionable charges on a district-issued credit card; a $100,000 school budget deficit; and allegations that a board member improperly made arrangements for a friend’s children to attend Beverly Hills schools, even though the children lived in Los Angeles.

Willie Brien and Alissa Roston were far ahead. The other two candidates, Virginia Maas and Allison Okyle, were neck and neck.