Carson Voters Defeat Proposal to Secede From L.A. Unified

Swamped by a teachers union blitz of money, mail and volunteers, a widely watched and potentially history-making proposal to secede from the mammoth Los Angeles Unified School District went down to resounding defeat in the South Bay city of Carson on Tuesday.

Measure D--the first Los Angeles secession proposal to reach voters in five decades--pitted well-organized United Teachers-Los Angeles against a small, underfunded group of community leaders who had worked for eight years on the proposal to create a 21,500-student, 17-campus system from Los Angeles and, to a lesser extent, the neighboring Compton Unified School District.

“We didn’t win tonight; the students won tonight,” said councilman Jim Dear, a Los Angeles teacher, as he walked into the Carson Community Center holding the latest results showing the measure losing by 3 to 1.

“It was important that this issue came out,” said Dear, a middle school teacher in Carson. “It’s a wake-up call to the LAUSD that people are unhappy with the system and the way it’s been.”

At the Carson Hilton, the mood was somber among those backing the measure.

“I wouldn’t have done anything differently,” said Carolyn Harris, an organizer of the Yes on D campaign and a candidate for what would have been a new school board. “I will always feel strongly about quality education. I have no regrets.”

Several other groups wanting to leave L.A. Unified--including those in the San Fernando Valley, Central Los Angeles and the Harbor area--were viewing the Carson election as a referendum of sorts on the nation’s second-largest school district.

Hawthorne voters, in another of several sizzling local contests across Los Angeles County, turned down an advisory measure to tear down the city’s airport and replace it with a commercial complex to bring in more tax dollars.

Daniel Weinstein, one of the would-be developers, appeared philosophical about the defeat Tuesday.

“This is it for us. The people have spoken,” Weinstein said, adding that his firm would respect the voters’ wishes and shelve its proposed project. Airport supporters vowed to push for improvements at the historic but underutilized facility.

“We’ll have to regroup and come up with a new plan. The sky is the limit--isn’t that what they say in aviation?”’ said Chris Miller, owner of Security Aviation.

Four of the five college and school district bond measures were headed toward approval, but a $25-million bond measure for the Palmdale schools was falling short, partial returns showed. Prospects were good for schools in El Segundo, the William S. Hart Union High School District in the Santa Clarita Valley and two community college districts: Santa Clarita and Mt. San Antonio in the San Gabriel Valley.

Voters decided on 24 ballot measures and picked from among 604 candidates for 276 offices. Seats up for grabs included council posts in 16 cities, plus governing slots in 62 school districts, eight community college districts and two library districts. Voters also chose occupants for more obscure offices--10 county water districts, three irrigation districts and one community service district.

In Hermosa Beach, voters soundly rejected three measures, saying no to repealing the utility users tax, rejecting term limits for council members and defeating a measure that would have restricted large seaside events.

Most of the ballot measures involved bond measures or other tax issues. But a few, such as a call to ban the sale, use and possession of fireworks in Baldwin Park--which was defeated--centered on so-called quality of life issues.

Backers of construction bond measures in five community college or school districts were getting a boost from a change in state law, approved last year by California voters, that lowers the vote needed from two-thirds to 55% to authorize bonds for building or refurbishing schools. Many campuses are overcrowded or have antiquated buildings with leaky roofs, rusty plumbing or inadequate wiring.

But other types of bond measures still need approval from two-thirds of voters. On Tuesday’s ballot, they included a $15-million proposal to buy parkland in Malibu--which was defeated; $5.88 million for a new library in the San Gabriel Valley town of Azusa, and $15 million to replace cramped and aged police and fire headquarters in Manhattan Beach, which lost.

Some of the contests for seats on city councils or school boards were especially spirited--and sometimes downright nasty. In the seven-way race for three seats on the Hawthorne School District board, candidate Hugo Rojas was jailed for allegedly having youngsters steal campaign signs. He denied the accusations, saying the whole thing was a political dirty trick.

Emotions ran high in City Council races in once-rural Agoura Hills at the county’s western edge, where a proposal for an ambitious retail development has split the slow-growth community.

And in Compton, 28 candidates vied for five seats on the board of the historically troubled Compton Unified School District. Tuesday’s election marked the first time voters chose board members who will have control over the district since it was taken over by the state more than eight years ago.

But the proposals to form a new school district in Carson and to close and redevelop the airport in Hawthorne were the two local measures that drew interest from outside their cities’ boundaries.

Most of the Carson teachers, although having a choice between joining the new district and staying with L.A. Unified, strongly opposed the breakaway bid, and some enlisted students and parents in their cause. On the day before the election, several hundred Carson High students walked off campus at midday and, carrying “No on Measure D” signs, marched to City Hall. The school district dispatched buses to bring them back to campus.

Measure D supporters had hoped their message of local control with no new taxes--and the promise of improved student achievement and more responsiveness to community needs--would carry the day in a race that also offered 18 candidates for a five-member board for the new district.

To reach the ballot, proponents of a separate school district for Carson had to undergo a process that included signature-gathering and intense scrutiny by both county and state education officials. Although several L.A. Unified breakaway groups have formed--including a proposal for two San Fernando Valley districts that is awaiting a hearing by the state Board of Education--the Carson measure was the first to go to voters in more than half a century.

In Hawthorne, the advisory measure that asked whether the airport should be torn down for a revenue-generating complex of shops, restaurants and a hotel drew opposition from pilots throughout the region as well as state and national aviation organizations. They see the airport as an important piece of the nation’s declining network of general aviation airports.

Development supporters, however, said the airport land should be used to benefit all city residents by helping rejuvenate the town’s slumping eastern edge. They also said revenue from a new family-friendly complex would help pay for more police officers and neighborhood improvements.

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Times staff writers Sufiya Abdur-Rahman, Patricia Ward Biederman, Richard Fausset, Sue Fox, Laura Loh and Zanto Peabody contributed to this report.