Inglewood Voters Go to Polls, Again

The biggest issue in Tuesday’s special election in Inglewood is the election itself. It will be the fifth time in less than a year that District 4 voters have been asked to choose a City Council member.

Labor leader Ralph L. Franklin, who held the seat for a month earlier this year before a judge threw out the spring balloting results and ordered a new election, says his opponent’s court battles have been costly to taxpayers, turned off voters and left the district without representation on a divided City Council.

Former Councilwoman Lorraine M. Johnson, the opponent, went to court after losing a spot on the runoff ballot to Franklin and a candidate later found to be ineligible. She said her main goal was to “preserve democracy” by compelling the city to offer voters an honest choice.

The contest between Franklin, 52, and Johnson, 44, has highlighted some of the deep political divisions within this city of 113,000, and it has featured contrasting stands on the biggest development controversy to hit town in years -- whether Wal-Mart should be allowed to build one of its big-box stores in the contested district.

That may sound like a recipe for high voter turnout, but City Clerk Yvonne Horton said last week she was seeing relatively little interest in the election; absentee ballot requests are fewer than usual.

“People just seem to be kind of disgusted and confused,” said Horton. “They’re wondering why they have to go through this again.”

Given the number of contests for the same seat recently, it’s no wonder. Tuesday’s balloting has its roots in last November, when Johnson, who had recently been appointed to fill a vacancy, ran in a special election to finish the term. She came in first among four candidates but fell short of a majority, so it was not until the runoff early this year that she won the seat.

But in April, when the seat came up for a regular four-year term, Johnson finished third behind community activist Mike Stevens, and Franklin, who finished second. Again, a runoff was required between the top two vote-getters, and Franklin won the seat in June.

Johnson, however, claiming that Stevens did not live in the district, filed suit before the runoff, asking that Stevens be disqualified and replaced by her on the ballot. In July, after a strongly worded rebuke to Stevens, Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Robert L. Hess nullified the April and June elections and ordered a new one between Franklin and Johnson.

Stevens, who filed an appeal, could not be reached for comment.

The ruling forced Franklin to give up the post, but the City Council refused to give it to Johnson, prompting her to file another suit; she won the right to have “Councilwoman, District 4” as her ballot designation but has not been able to regain the seat.

Now Johnson finds herself under attack for the suits. In a letter to voters after the judge voided the election, Franklin said Johnson pushed for a new election “at considerable and unnecessary cost” to taxpayers. The city clerk estimates Tuesday’s election will cost $40,000.

Late last week, the race took a nasty turn when a committee independent of either campaign sent out a campaign mailer purported to be from Horton, the city clerk, berating Johnson. Horton, who has endorsed Franklin, denounced the mailer for using her name without her knowledge.

Johnson counters criticism of her court battles by saying she could not stand by and watch Stevens make a mockery of the democratic process.

“People run illegally all the time, and nobody does anything about it. I’m a fighter for what’s right for our community, and I wasn’t going to stand for it,” said Johnson, who undertook the suits at her own expense.

Franklin, noting that he won about 70% of the runoff vote, said he believes voters expressed themselves clearly in the spring.

“We need to put this behind us and get on with solving the problems this city faces,” said Franklin, a vice president of Local 770 of the United Food and Commercial Workers.

He and his wife, Juanita, raised their three children in Inglewood, where they have lived for 30 years. Franklin has long been active with the Boy Scouts and the United Way and has headed the Inglewood Parks and Recreation Commission and the Lockhaven Community Assn. He was a founding member of Inglewood Neighborhood Housing Services.

He wants to build more parks, boost funding for community policing, crack down on prostitution and expand the federally funded airport noise-abatement program. During his month in office, he launched extensive tree-trimming and street-fixing projects.

“I hit the deck running, and I’m still running now,” Franklin says of his daily precinct walking.

Franklin worked on behalf of Johnson’s earlier campaign, but later decided to seek the seat himself. The two sharply disagreed about the proposed Wal-Mart store.

Franklin, along with much of organized labor, opposes the nonunion chain, saying it undercuts local businesses and pays poor wages and benefits. Johnson, citing high unemployment in the city and the need for higher tax revenues, believes the store would be an asset.

The issue may be moot by the time the election is settled -- Wal-Mart officials have begun circulating petitions for a ballot measure that would bypass City Hall and let voters decide.

Johnson, who works in investment banking, is a single mother of two sons. She has served on the school bonds oversight committee, the Inglewood Human Affairs Commission and the Civil Service Review Board. She has been a block captain for her neighborhood and founded a local study center for Inglewood students who attended high school in Pacific Palisades.

During her tenure on the council she made economic development a priority, she said, meeting with firms and community members to help determine strategies for boosting the city’s commercial viability. She wants the council to work more closely with the school board to improve local education.