Westminster Vote to Cap Wild Year : ‘Old Guard’ Grapples to Control Diverse City’s Future

Not much is supposed to happen in Westminster.

But this year a lot has.

So far in 1988, Westminster has been rocked by a cross-burning, vandalism near a synagogue and a disputed fatal shooting by police. At the same time, there has been growing concern in some quarters about how efficiently the city is being run and renewed hand-wringing about its financial condition.

All of this has set the stage for an unusually lively election season this fall, with three incumbent council members and the mayor up for election in what is shaping up as a classic “old guard” vs. “new blood” battle. By the time the polls close Nov. 8, it could be the city’s most expensive election ever.

The incumbents include Mayor Charles V. Smith, who is running against Councilwoman Anita Huseth. Incumbents seeking reelection to the council are Joy L. Neugebauer and Mayor pro Tem Frank Fry Jr. Allen A. Pace, who was appointed to fill a council vacancy left when Mayor Elden Gillespie died of cancer in February, is seeking election.

Four Challengers

The challengers are L.J. (Lyn) Gillespie, daughter of the former mayor; Margie L. Rice, a school board trustee; Virgil L. Nickell, an ordained church deacon and production shop planner, and Paul O. Perea, a retired Los Angeles Department of Water & Power electrician.

Already, Gillespie has a political war chest of almost $23,000, including $21,000 from her father’s election committee. She has said she will probably spend $30,000 “or more” to win a seat on the five-member council. Gillespie has hired the political consulting firm of Harvey Englander to manage her campaign.

Both Smith and Nickell have said they expect to spend about $30,000--almost twice what it cost Smith to win his first council seat just 4 years ago.

As of Oct. 5, Nickell had outspent all the other candidates, having laid out almost $15,000 for printing, signs and a mailer to the city’s 23,000 households, according to campaign finance statements filed with the city clerk. His campaign is also receiving aid from dozens of volunteers from Citizens for Moral Government, a group organized by the Rev. Robert L. Hymers Jr., pastor of the Fundamentalist Baptist Tabernacle of Los Angeles. Hymers helped lead recent protests against the film, “The Last Temptation of Christ.”

Nickell, who is an ordained deacon at Calvary Baptist Church in Westminster, said he met members of Hymers’ group while walking precincts for the late Assemblyman Richard E. Longshore (R-Santa Ana).

“I needed volunteers, and I asked them,” he said.

At 31, Gillespie would become the youngest member of a council composed of retirees and longtime council members if elected. Neugebauer, 60, who owns and operates a tool-making firm in Long Beach, has been on the council for 16 years; Fry, a 63-year-old retired grocery clerk, has served 18 years.

‘Revolving Door’ Criticized

“The City Council in recent years has become a revolving door for the same candidates, and it’s time for fresh new ideas,” said August Martin, a spokesman for the 130-member Westminster Police Officers Assn. This year, the group made its first endorsement in a council election, backing Gillespie.

Neugebauer, Fry, Smith and Gillespie won endorsements from the Westminster Fire Fighters Assn., whose members traditionally walk precincts during off-duty hours for the candidates they support.

Why so much interest in a city described in T. Jefferson Parker’s recently released book, “Little Saigon,” as a “suburb straining for identity”?

Just 4 years ago, this west county city of 74,000 was on the brink of bankruptcy. Today, although it is in better economic shape, “it’s not that much better,” City Manager Murray L. Warden said.

Bigotry has become an increasingly important issue in Westminster, after a cross-burning involving a black family in the city’s Indian Village tract and pro-Nazi slogans being spray-painted on a wall across from a synagogue. In addition, Latinos still express anger and frustration at police and City Hall several months after Frank Martinez, 18, was fatally shot by police during a back-yard birthday party for his mother.

As mayor, Smith has tried in meetings to defuse racial and ethnic tensions. But the mayor and council members have failed to come to grips adequately with the strained emotions among Latino residents who refuse to let the city forget the Martinez shooting, according to residents of the neighborhood where it happened.

And one issue residents continue to complain about involves a utility user’s tax. Concern about city finances prompted the unpopular tax, which generates $2.5 million a year from a 5% surcharge on gas, water, electricity and cable TV bills, in September, 1986.

Smith, Neugebauer and Fry voted for the tax--2 months before state voters approved Proposition 62, Howard Jarvis’ 1986 anti-tax initiative that requires all taxes imposed by local government to be approved by voters.

Now in the courts, the tax was upheld recently by the 4th District Court of Appeal. But that ruling is expected to be appealed by an anti-tax organization to the state Supreme Court.

“We didn’t need the tax,” Huseth said. “I felt that Proposition 62 gives the voters the right to vote on any tax, and this city has spent about $79,000 fighting this in court. We could have spent that money on educating the public on the tax and getting it approved by voters.”

In fact, four candidates--Nickell, Rice, Perea and Huseth--said that if they win they will either repeal the tax or try to have it approved by city voters.

Rice called the user’s tax “taxation without representation.”

Pace, though he was not on the council when the tax was imposed, said he favors the user’s tax. And Gillespie said she believes that the tax is “necessary.”

“We needed this tax, but what we did wrong was wait too long to pass it,” Fry said.

Smith said that when he joined the council in 1984 the city was on the brink of economic disaster.

“We’ve turned it around,” Smith said proudly at a recent candidates forum. “We have imposed a utility user’s tax because we needed to generate more revenue.”

Neugebauer, a former mayor and single parent of seven sons, said it “took courage” to pass the tax.

“It took courage to enact a utility user’s tax and also courage to trim 17 city jobs, which we did while I was on the council,” Neugebauer said.

“Now, people are sensitive about the tax. Well, what do they want us to do? Jump in front of a bus?”

WESTMINSTER CITY ELECTION CANDIDATES

Two candidates, left, are running for mayor and seven, right and below, are after three city council seats in Westminster. Council members will be voted on citywide in the Nov. 8 election.