Write-Ins Give Long Beach Race a Twist

When it comes to election oddities, things don’t get much stranger than in Long Beach, where Tuesday’s runoff for mayor features three--not the customary two--candidates.

And just one name on the ballot.

Two of the contenders, the popular but termed-out Mayor Beverly O’Neill and self-described City Hall outsider Norm Ryan, are running write-in campaigns. They face Vice Mayor Dan Baker, the only mayoral candidate whose name voters will see when they cast ballots by mail or enter the voting booth.

The contest is one of a smattering of local elections around Los Angeles County on Tuesday, including those for a school bond measure in the Santa Clarita Valley and twin measures in Pomona to reduce or eliminate the utility users tax. In Long Beach, Tuesday’s ballot features two other runoff contests, for the 7th District City Council seat and for the 5th District post on the Long Beach Unified School District board.

But it is the top-of-the-ticket mayor’s race--and the weird circumstances surrounding it--that will probably give the state’s fifth-largest city a new chapter in the annals of electioneering.

“Long Beach is unique.... I would say Long Beach has the best-trained write-in electorate anywhere in the United States,” quipped Cal State Long Beach political scientist Paul Schmidt.

O’Neill sailed into largely uncharted waters early last year when, approaching the end of her second four-year term as mayor, she decided to seek a third term. Unlike most cities with laws limiting the number of terms for politicians, Long Beach has an important exception: It allows write-in candidacies for officials who have served the allotted two terms.

Starting with the January 2001 news conference in which she waved a bundle of pencils as she announced her reelection bid, O’Neill’s main campaign effort has been to tell voters how they can reelect her by writing her name on their ballots. She sent pencils in her political mailers, which included absentee ballot applications, and she hammered home her “you can write me in” message at every opportunity, from candidates forums to the greeting on the telephone answering machine at her campaign headquarters.

Despite strong sentiment for term limits in Long Beach (voters overwhelmingly approved the limits in 1992 and turned down a measure to ease them in 2000) and the obvious hurdle for any write-in, O’Neill got 11,032 votes to come in first among a field of seven in the April 9 primary. But her 28% of the vote fell far short of the 50%-plus-one needed to win the primary, so she found herself in the runoff--again as a write-in--with Baker, who finished second with 25% of the vote.

Ryan, a businessman who led the successful 2000 campaign to cut the city’s utility tax, finished third with 23%. He sued to be included on the ballot, but the judge said the runoff was meant to be a two-way contest between the top vote getters. The judge also turned down a similar request by O’Neill, saying the city’s ordinance is clear in prohibiting a termed-out officeholder from appearing on the ballot.

Political scientist Schmidt said the system that produced the three-way, one-name runoff has turned the primary into “a sort of exhibition game.... It’s a strange system, and I think it needs fixing.”

The situation has posed challenges even for the one candidate who did make the ballot.

Baker, who said he has knocked on nearly 25,000 doors during the daily precinct walks he has been making since July, worries that voters will not bother to turn out in the mistaken belief that he, as the only one on the ballot, has the election in the bag.

“If we can get the turnout, my prospects are great,” he said.

Baker, 29, was elected in 1999 to the 2nd Council District seat, which includes the massive Port of Long Beach, the city’s main economic engine. The port is also a major source of pollution, noise and truck traffic on the Long Beach Freeway.

Baker calls for a tougher stance on port-related environmental problems. He also would like to see a redesign of the federal breakwater (which O’Neill opposes) to generate some waves and cleaner water at the city’s beaches. Baker also promises to pay more attention to the diverse neighborhoods in the city of 461,500, with emphasis on such “quality of life” services as repairing sidewalks and trimming trees.

“Over the last decade there has been a lot of focus on trade and tourism and less on taking care of the people who live here,” he said.

A former customs officer who battled drug trafficking, Baker also calls for adding 75 officers to the Long Beach Police Department. He has been endorsed by the Long Beach Police Officers Assn. and by Los Angeles County Sheriff Lee Baca.

Baker acknowledges O’Neill’s popularity but downplays her stunning primary upset. He notes that he carried more of the city’s nine council districts and that “three-fourths of the voters said they wanted somebody different for mayor.... I think voters are ready for a change.”

Ryan, 40, who brokers and oversees bond programs for cities and other public entities, offers himself as the finance-savvy outsider. His “No More Business as Usual” campaign slogan underscores his promises to overhaul the city charter, streamline city operations “for maximum efficiency and cost-effectiveness” and halt what he sees as support for “out-of-town developers at the expense of local businesses.”

His backers include the California Republican Party (this is technically a nonpartisan race; both Baker and O’Neill are Democrats) and the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Assn.

“Everybody wants to be the reformer, but I actually know how to do it,” Ryan said. “I review hundreds of municipal budgets a year, and I certainly know what works.”

O’Neill, 71, said she needs another four years to finish the work of reconstructing a city devastated by the aerospace downturn and the closing of the Long Beach Naval Station.

Since she was first elected in 1994, the former president of Long Beach City College has pushed to acquire the surplus Navy land, expand and modernize the port, develop technology-based businesses and retail centers and turn the city into a tourist mecca. Although some projects have been successful, scale-backs and delays have plagued others, including the financially struggling Aquarium of the Pacific.

“We are totally different today from the city that was dependent on the Navy and aerospace to one that has a diverse economy and a very bright future,” O’Neill said. “But to go from concept to reality has been a long and cumbersome process. We have accomplished a lot, and we can see the light at the end of the tunnel, but we are not there yet.”

O’Neill says she would use the next four years to “stabilize our economy and to start to address the needs of the individual neighborhoods, which have been neglected for so long because of a lack of funds,” and to tackle housing, transportation and other issues.

Her backers include the Long Beach Area Chamber of Commerce, the Press-Telegram (the city’s local daily newspaper) and former Gov. George Deukmejian, a longtime friend and neighbor.

Many who closely watch Long Beach politics expect O’Neill to be the winner Tuesday. That is because of her longshot primary victory and her popularity with the civic establishment and the city’s most dedicated voters.

The politics watchers also predict a low turnout, a factor that would favor O’Neill. In the primary, turnout was about 16%, according to the city clerk’s office, but it was higher in the districts that supported O’Neill--the 3rd, where she lives, and the 5th.

Except for controversies over mailings by two groups outside the campaigns that prompted the city attorney to file lawsuits saying the groups violated city campaign contributions law, the mayor’s race has been a relatively polite, subdued affair.

“It’s been a pretty quiet campaign. There hasn’t been much coverage and not a lot of public activity. It’s all being waged in the mail,” said Jeffrey Adler, a veteran Long Beach campaign consultant who is not involved in the mayor’s race.

Elsewhere Tuesday, voters will decide on Measure E, a $48-million school bond issue for the Saugus Union School District in the Santa Clarita Valley. District officials say the money is needed to help build two high schools and to make improvements on elementary campuses.

Voters in Pomona will consider two ballot measures.

Measure A would eliminate the utility users tax over a five-year period and abolish the city’s general sanitation fee. Measure B would reduce the tax from 9% to 8% and reallocate one-eighth of that remaining 8% to establish a job creation program.

The utility users tax is the city’s primary single revenue source, and Pomona officials say passage of either measure would result in reduced city services.

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Times staff writer Cara Mia DiMassa contributed to this report.