Council, School Races Top Balloting : South Pasadena: The long-running issue of the ‘missing link’ in the Long Beach Freeway defines the contest for a council seat.

SOUTH PASADENA —  To complete or not to complete the Long Beach Freeway?

That sometimes seems to be the only question, and has been for three decades: Should the “missing link” of the roadway be completed through this small city on the western edge of the San Gabriel Valley?

Not surprisingly, the freeway issue also defines the current campaign for a vacant City Council seat.

In a special election Nov. 7, voters will decide who among three candidates will fill the post of the late Joseph Crosby. He died in April, after serving one year of a four-year term. The election was forced after the council could not agree in May on a successor for Crosby.

On the freeway issue, one of the three candidates, Mavis Minjares, 36, calls herself a “no-build” advocate. Another candidate, Dick Richards, 67, says he thinks the term “no-build” sounds too intransigent. Still, he says, he does not favor completion of the freeway within the city limits.

And the third candidate, Jane A. Crosby, 69, says that, although she is against the so-called Meridian Variation--the route currently favored by state transportation planners--she advocates that the city adopt a stance that suggests room for negotiation on the freeway.

“It’s a real critical council race,” Councilman James C. Hodge Jr. said, “because we’re sharply divided as a council. Whoever gets elected will be the tie-breaker, essentially.”

Reflecting that divisiveness, the four-member body has been split in its support of the candidates, each of whom is seeking public office for the first time.

Hodge and Mayor Pro Tem Evelyn Fierro openly back Richards. Last May, Mayor Samuel G. Knowles and Councilman James S. Woollacott Jr. unsuccessfully proposed that Jane Crosby be allowed to fill her husband’s seat. But Knowles and Woollacott now say they are not openly endorsing any candidate.

As for the freeway issue, she characterizes Minjares and Richards as both being “for no-build,” adding: “We’re afraid that the ‘no-build’ group is going to antagonize Caltrans.”

Minjares makes no apologies for her position. “I have been a consistent ‘no-build’ candidate from the day I filed. I feel that ‘no-build’ would benefit all the citizens of South Pasadena. No one is expendable.”

A Pasadena native, Minjares came to South Pasadena eight years ago after having lived in Sierra Madre for five years. Her involvement in local politics has centered around the freeway issue.

Richards, however, does not embrace the “no-build” label. “I haven’t said ‘no build’ because that does sometimes carry a connotation that you’re opposed to everything.” Yet Richards said, “I don’t think freeways are the answer to our traffic problems. It would be totally devastating to the city to have a freeway.”

More appropriate solutions, he said, would involve mass transit and further synchronization of traffic lights on surface streets. “We need a cooperative understanding between all the communities to try to work out the (traffic) problems.”

The freeway issue, he said, sometimes overshadows other pressing issues, such as business development and maintaining the city’s financial health. “We do have other issues that need to be considered. I’m not totally opposed to commercial development, but I’d like to see any commercial development in keeping with the character of the town.” And, he said, “we should slow down in our growth here.”

A graduate of Boston University, Richards attended law school there and then joined the FBI.

A South Pasadena resident since 1955, he came to Southern California in 1947 when he was transferred as a special agent for the FBI. He retired from the bureau in 1977. Since then, he has helped his his wife run her antique and gift shop. In 1987, they were named “South Pasadena’s Business Persons of the Year.”

Crosby is a lifelong resident of South Pasadena. Her resume includes a lengthy list of civic activities and awards at the local, county and state levels.

As an example of her breadth of public service, she cites her chairmanship for the last four years of the California Bicentennial Commission on the U.S. Constitution. Appointed by Gov. George Deukmejian, she became embroiled in controversy in 1987 when Deukmejian ordered an inquiry into why the commission endorsed the sale of a textbook, “The Making of America,” as a fund-raising device for the commission.

Written by a former assistant to the late FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover, the book was criticized two years ago by politicians such as Assembly Speaker Willie Brown (D-San Francisco). Brown and others complained about the book’s references to black children as “pickaninnies” and for its characterization of American slave owners as “the worst victims” of slavery. Brown’s great-great-grand-mother was a slave.

The book controversy, said Crosby, who is white, was generated by partisan Democrats who wanted to sabotage the commission and Deukmejian’s three Republican appointees, including a black woman. “I really went through a lot of headaches over this. And in spite of it, I did a good job. And the governor ending up supporting us 100%.”

As a newcomer to politics, Minjares said she offers voters a chance for change from those who have longstanding interests in the city. “I feel there is a lot of favoritism and cronyism in this town. I don’t really want to point any fingers. But anyone who has experienced it knows what it is.”

Minjares said she is a senior honors student at Cal State Los Angeles, where she is working on a bachelor’s degree in theater arts and dance.