Homeowner-Backed Candidates Win in Glendale

Incumbent Dave Weaver and homeowner group leaders Bob Yousefian and Frank Quintero won election to the Glendale City Council on Tuesday, while two incumbents and challenger Greg Krikorian took seats on the Glendale school board.

Glendale Community College Board incumbents Mary Hamilton and Victor King and educator Armine Hacopian also won four-year terms in Tuesday’s election.

In Inglewood, voters aimed to decide two City Council seats and three school board seats.

The Glendale City Council race was loosely divided among candidates backed by homeowner groups--including Weaver--and those supported by business interests. With incumbents Ginger Bremberg and Sheldon Baker stepping down, the election gave voters a chance to chart a new course in City Hall.

Yousefian, 44, who owns a home remodeling business, was supported by homeowner groups eager to preserve open space in the Verdugo Mountains and elsewhere. During the campaign, he called for bond measures to improve the city’s parks and schools. He is a past president of the Glendale Homeowners Coordinating Council and a former board member of the Northwest Glendale Homeowners Assn.

Quintero, although a past president of the Glendale Chamber of Commerce, was also allied with homeowner groups. The 55-year-old Quintero is the current president of the Rossmoyne-Mountain Homeowner Assn. and campaigned on a platform of preserving the city’s quality of life.

A vocational counselor, Quintero was trailed by civic volunteer Mary Boger and another former Glendale chamber president, Hamo Rostamian, who is in the commercial real estate business. Rostamian, 48, led the field of candidates with nearly $49,000 in campaign contributions through March 17, the last reporting date.

Rostamian and Boger were backed by a political action committee calling itself Glendale Tomorrow, which also endorsed Tony Tartaglia. The group said it wanted to restore balance to a city government its contends is no longer friendly to business.

Although backed by Glendale Tomorrow, Boger, 55, also claimed endorsements from homeowner groups.

Tartaglia, 36, who moved to Glendale last year, vowed to bring big retailers like Walmart and Costco to San Fernando Road to increase city sales tax revenues.

Historically pro-business, the Glendale City Council is in transition. Two years ago, representatives of homeowners associations won a majority of the council seats for the first time. Councilman Gus Gomez was elected in 1999, joining Weaver and veteran homeowner leader Bremberg, who came out of her first council retirement in 1997 to give representatives of homeowner groups a three-vote council majority.

Weaver, who was elected by his colleagues last year to serve a one-year term as mayor, defeated an incumbent in 1997 in his third run for City Council.

Weaver ran on the council’s accomplishments. They included a major development with the Disney Co. and a critical vote against deregulating the city’s power supplies, which has spared residents and businesses significant rate hikes and rolling blackouts.

The victors will be sworn in to four-year terms of office April 9.

In the race for Glendale Unified School District Board, Krikorian and incumbents Jeanne K. Bentley and Chuck Sambar won election, defeating incumbent Louise Foote and six other candidates.

In the college board race, Hamilton, Hacopian and King led a field of five candidates.

City Clerk Doris Twedt and City Treasurer Ronald T. Borucki ran unopposed for reelection.

In Inglewood, controversial City Councilwoman Judith L. Dunlap appeared headed for a third term in District 2, leading a field of five candidates.

The incumbent, who Inglewood Mayor Roosevelt F. Dorn said was one of the most contentious members of a council renowned for its bickering, recently filed a lawsuit against her colleagues for allegedly violating disclosure laws.

In Council District 1, business executive Curren Price Jr. was also well ahead of four other candidates with slightly more than half the votes counted.

In the city’s three school board races, incumbent Alice B. Grigsby was headed for another term for school board District 3 with nearly three-fourths of the votes.

In school board District 2, incumbent Eveline Ross seemed likely to win and had more than half of the votes early in the count.

But late Tuesday, teacher Cresia Washington was locked in a battle with Johnny Young, a pastor and college administrator, for the District 1 school board seat. Each had collected about 25% of the votes.

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Times staff writer Oscar Johnson contributed to this story.