Dogs, Taxes Come Up Short in Low-Key Local Elections

Hermosa Beach headed for the dogs--the leashed variety--as West Hollywood awarded itself a civic center and Santa Clarita voters turned aside an effort to raise their taxes Tuesday as Southland voters went to the polls in a decidedly underwhelming election.

Across the county, officials reported, a mere 12% of registered voters showed up at the polls--by any measure a low turnout.

In Hermosa Beach, an effort by dog owners to ensure that their unleashed pets could have the run of a 20-acre greenbelt the city is purchasing was defeated, and a countermeasure drafted by the City Council that would endorse the city’s leash law there won handily.

Before the election, Mayor June Williams had argued that the city should not pay $7.5 million for what amounts to a dog run. As election night progressed, her fellow leash advocates grew confident.

“Who says the people don’t have common sense?” asked Councilman Jim Rosenberger, a supporter of the leash initiative.

“To the extent that dogs vote, I guess that this is negative for them. Who knows, maybe next time we’ll be seeing paw prints all over the ballots,” he said.

The dog owners’ group criticized city officials for confusing the voters by placing a competing proposal on the ballot.

In West Hollywood, the biggest municipal squabble in the young city’s history ended with voter approval of a $23-million civic center, which will be built in West Hollywood Park.

In Lynwood, where City Council races this year spawned charges of racial bias, a see-saw battle ended with two incumbent black members of the council--Mayor Evelyn Wells and Mayor Pro Tem Paul Richards--victorious, along with Latino candidate Armando Rea. Emma M. Esparza and Alberto Penalber, two others in a Latino slate of challengers that was trying to unseat the blacks, narrowly missed being elected.

In South Pasadena, Dick Richards, 67, trounced his opponents in balloting to replace the late City Councilman Joseph Crosby, defeating Crosby’s widow, Jane, and a third candidate, Mavis Minjares. The election won notice because the city has fought Caltrans’ plans to extend the Long Beach Freeway into the city’s heart. Richards was less anti-freeway than other candidates, but his election will maintain the city’s anti-extension stance.

In the Santa Clarita Valley, a tax initiative to raise $285 million to build and improve roads in the fast-growing area was handed a lopsided defeat. Measure P needed a two-thirds vote to pass but mustered only minor support.

The tax would have raised $40 million immediately and up to $285 million over the next 30 years, based on an increase in residential property tax bills of between $75 and $200 annually.

John Machin, a homeowner who headed a group opposing the tax, said of his side’s apparent victory, “It shows that a true grass-roots movement of people can confront the old-line Establishment and big money.”

Sheriff’s deputies reported late Tuesday that a flag was burned at a polling place at the California Institute of the Arts in Valencia, but the motive behind the incident was not immediately clear.

Many of the disparate contests in Los Angeles County centered on the politically touchy subject of growth, overcrowding and associated concerns.

In Hermosa Beach, the battle between dog owners demanding a place for their pets to roam free and City Council members seeking to invoke the local leash law grew with the city’s pending purchase of the greenbelt.

Because the greenbelt is owned by the Santa Fe Railroad--and is thus private property--the city’s leash law did not apply, and dog owners and their pets had the run of the land. But the city’s pronouncement that, as the new owner, it would enforce leash laws in the park set off howls among dog owners.

“It’s the only place in Hermosa Beach where you can let your dogs run free, and the only green place around,” Jan Buike said. “Everything else is covered with condominiums and parking lots.”

But city officials were equally outraged that anyone would consider letting their dog off a leash. Pretty soon, Mayor Williams warned, dogs imported from everywhere would be “nipping at joggers’ legs and knocking down little kids and going potty in the ice plants.”

The South Pasadena election revived the long and cantankerous debate over extension of the Long Beach Freeway, as the candidates seeking to fill the seat of the late Councilman Crosby tussled over whether the freeway’s “missing link” should be completed.

Minjares had declared herself the “no-build” candidate, while Richards said he was not that insistent--but that he did not favor extending the freeway inside the city limit. Crosby, the widow of the incumbent who died in April after serving one year of a four-year term, said she favored negotiation on the roadway’s future but opposed Caltrans’ plans to extend the freeway through the center of town.

Could Not Agree

The election was set because council members could not agree on a successor to Crosby.

The West Hollywood election ended the most divisive contest in the city’s five-year history, as competing city interests waged war over whether the civic center should be built. The race pitted organizations led by competing City Council members, each claiming to be the savior of the small park where the center was scheduled to be built.

Center opponents, led by Councilman Steve Schulte, called the plan an extravagant boondoggle that would reduce the city’s paltry park acreage. The pro-center forces, led by Councilman John Heilman, said it would provide needed office space, save the city rent payments and revive a crime-ridden park.

But as much as a contest over the civic center, the battle shaped up as a referendum on the future of the city and the competing approaches mounted by Schulte and Heilman, who frequently clash on city issues.

The feud over the Santa Clarita Valley road tax, Measure P on the ballot there, was another sign of the growing pains faced by a new city. Centered on the $285-million tax initiative to build and improve roads, the contest pitted many of the region’s leading citizens, who supported the tax, against a grass-roots campaign by homeowners who opposed it.

The Roads Now Committee--made up of City Council members and residents who fought for cityhood two years ago--said the tax was needed to expand and refurbish the valley’s inefficient and often-congested road network. The committee raised more than $86,000 to push the measure--much of it from developers and contractors.

Conversely, a small group of homeowners raised only $1,900 to campaign against the tax. They said Measure P would build roads that would encourage more growth in an already burgeoning valley and argued that developers, not homeowners, should pay for any new roads.

In Lynwood, the racism charges dominated the City Council race, which had 12 candidates seeking only three seats, until the final day of campaigning.

The charges initially arose when black incumbents said they were accused of favoring blacks after voting last April to rename Century Boulevard in honor of slain civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. After the vote, two of the Latino candidates, Esparza and Penalber, started an unsuccessful recall attempt against the black members, Wells, Richards and Councilman Robert Henning.

Esparza denied that her opposition was racially motivated.

* ELECTION TABLES: A27, A28