LOCAL ELECTIONS LONG BEACH MAYOR : Kell, Clark Exchange Last-Minute Attacks

LONG BEACH —  A last-minute flurry of mailers bearing boasts, blame and distortions has animated a mayor’s race that had limped along for months, despite an abundance of candidates.

With the Tuesday election just two days away, attention is centering on the two main contenders for the mayor’s seat, incumbent Ernie Kell and Councilman Tom Clark, who by dint of money and campaign organization lead a pack of seven mayoral candidates. Also on the ballot will be candidates for three contested City Council seats, two school board seats and two seats on the Long Beach City College Board of Trustees, as well as ballot measures dealing with the creation of a Citizen Police Complaint Commission and jurisdiction over the city sewer system.

Kell, elected the city’s first full-time mayor two years ago, and Clark, the council’s senior member, are both accusing the other of inept leadership and distortions.

“I think Tom Clark is a poor excuse for a mayor,” sniped Kell, referring to Clark’s three terms as ceremonial mayor under the old system, when the council elected one of its members mayor. “When he was mayor there was nothing but chaos in the office of mayor.”

Clark maintains Kell has achieved little of note in his first term as mayor of thestate’s fifth largest city. “It’s very hard to think of anything that’s come out of that office. There’s been no leadership out of that office on issues,” Clark, 63, said in a recent interview.

The two substantially agree on a variety of issues, making their duel more one of competents than competing ideologies. Both are veterans of City Hall politics. Clark, an optometrist, has been on the council since 1966. Kell, a wealthy developer, was elected to the council in 1975 and served two terms asceremonial mayor before he was elected to the new full-time mayor’s position with a 60% majority in 1988.

Clark has picked up support from the liberal camp, including the citywide political group, Long Beach Area Citizens Involved, the gay and lesbian community and some minority groups, along with the Long Beach Police Officers Assn. Kell has the backing of labor, most of the City Council, some minorities and much of the development community.

As of late March, Kell had spent $140,000--or more than double the amount spent by Clark, who lacks Kell’s personal wealth and fund-raising base. Kell is lending his campaign about $50,000 of his own money and Clark has loaned his campaign $26,000, although their spending is not expected to match that of the 1988 election, when the top three candidates for mayor spent more than $1 million competing for the post.

Kell, 61, is already planning his victory party at his favorite Italian restaurant, saying his polls show “we have a very, very comfortable lead. . . . We’re quite confident.”

Still, a crowded roster of candidates and an onslaught of hit pieces in the waning days of the campaign could prevent any candidate from grabbing a majority of the vote. Observers are not discounting the possibility of a runoff.

Clark, initially given little chance of catching up with a well-financed incumbent who has made no major mistakes in office, says he has been buoyed by endorsements from supporters of former mayoral challenger Luanne Pryor. Though Pryor, who forced Kell into a runoff with Councilwoman Jan Hall two years ago, endorsed Kell in this election, some of her backers have gone over to Clark.

“This was supposed to be a shoo-in (for Kell). When I started, people asked me why I was running,” Clark remarked, saying he believes he has a chance of engaging Kell in a runoff.

In recent weeks Clark and Kell have hurled barbs at one another, sending out mailers that go so far as to blame the other for the dramatic rise in the city’s crime rate.

Clark has hit hard on Kell’s extensive contributions from the development and business community, portraying the mayor as a puppet of special interests, while Kell has responded by dredging up incidents from Clark’s past.

“He’s never tied one vote of mine to a contributor,” Kell said in an interview last week, bristling at Clark’s attacks.

Kell then pulled out records showing that Clark last year introduced a motion to have the city relinquish its public right of way easements on a parcel of land owned by the Bixby Land Co.-- within a few days of receiving a $1,000 contribution from the company’s president.

“He talks about influence. I wonder if that had any influence,” Kell said.

State law precludes appointed officials from voting on a political donor’s project within a year of receiving $250 or more, but such a vote is legal for elected officials. Clark said the matter was routine, that the easement giveaway was recommended by the city staff and had nothing to do with the contribution.

In a mailer sent out last week, Clark used a cartoon to depict Kell, a private pilot, astride an airplane as residents fled from airport noise with their ears covered. Listing aviation companies that have contributed to Kell’s campaign, the flier implies that the increase in flights at the Long Beach Airport is Kell’s fault.

The mailer was branded “a malicious and false attack,” by Jeff Adler, one of Kell’s political consultants, who called it another example of “the distortions and half-truths that have characterized (Clark’s) campaign from the beginning.”

Indeed, both Kell, who formerly represented a council district bordering the airport, and Clark, whose district lies just south of the airport, have opposed airport expansion. And the recent increase in flights was a result of a court order stemming from a lawsuit filed by commercial airlines challenging local noise regulations as an unfair restriction on their business.

In another mailer dealing with the city’s soaring crime rate, Clark ties the increase to Kell’s leadership. Clark goes on to explain what he would do to fight crime, failing to point out that his positions are much the same as Kell’s.

Clark has also conceded that he inaccurately quoted Kell in a February mailer that claimed Kell’s response to a debate invitation was, “No, I won’t come to your neighborhood and debate the issues.” Kell never made that statement. Rather Clark was paraphrasing his interpretation of Kell’s remarks.

Kell has responded to Clark’s attacks by reviving episodes from Clark’s past, ranging from a “no confidence” vote by the council in 1979 to calling meetings that violated the state open meetings law to a 1988 incident when Clark tore down an opponent’s campaign sign. Clark, saying he does regret some of the incidents, also complains that Kell’s version of the events is peppered with “absolute lies” and omissions.

For instance, Kell neglects to note that he supported Clark, voting against the no confidence motion or that Kell attended the meetings that violated the state open meetings law.

In regard to a conflict of interest charge that Clark in 1976 failed to disclose ownership of Harbor Bank stock until shortly before he testified before a grand jury on the city’s dealings with the bank building’s developers, Clark said he disclosed the shares in an earlier public form but forgot to on a later one. “That was nothing but a tempest in a teapot,” Clark insisted.

And while Kell has emphasized in mailers that Clark spent more than twice as much on travel as Kell in the past two years, he does not note that Clark represents the city at state and national municipal conferences that Kell has often chosen not to attend because he likes to stay in Long Beach.

Again and again Clark has assailed Kell for poor leadership, contending that Kell’s list of accomplishments for the past two years is embarrassingly thin. “Most of the things he’s talking about are surface fluff or things that would have occurred without him,” Clark asserted.

Clark criticizes Kell for letting the city’s labor negotiations with the police union drag on for a year. He says the mayor has given “lip service” support to the ballot proposal that would create a citizen commission to review police brutality complaints.

He complains that Kell’s City Hall staff is basically secretarial, lacking budget or legislative analysts, that the mayor doesn’t propose new programs but waits until an issue is forced to the forefront by others and then appoints a task force to deal with the problem.

Kell’s successful effort to add $700,000 for sidewalk repair and street trees to this year’s city budget comes under fire from Clark, who says the city didn’t have the money and that sidewalk repair was the wrong thing to spend it on when there are so many other pressing needs.

He accuses Kell of being a born-again preservationist who allowed the destruction of the Pacific Coast Club and the Jergins Trust Building and voted against development moratoriums in 1986.

Kell in turn lambastes Clark for failing to get things passed while mayor.

Kell holds up the Offices of Education and of Neighborhood and Historic Preservation as two major achievements of his first term.

The education officer has gotten good marks from the school district administration, although the office primarily coordinates activities between the city and school district rather than originating new programs. The preservation officer has also won praise as an energetic protector of the city’s cultural heritage, although it remains to be seen whether she will ultimately be successful in saving landmarks from demolition.

Kell also cites a series of drug education lectures his office helped present in neighborhoods around the city and the $300,000 that was added to the budget this year for gang, anti-drug and graffiti programs.

As for the protracted and contentious police negotiations, Kell said that if the city had settled earlier, it never would have won the concessions it did from the union to improve staffing practices.

In his campaign literature Kell boasts that he “is leading the way in the Southland’s struggle to help the homeless,” saying that he is convening a summit conference of mayors to discuss the problem and serving as a fund-raising co-chair of a statewide bond measure on the June ballot to raise money for the homeless.

His city record has not impressed homeless activists, however.

“He’s a danger to poor people,” contended Martha Bryson, a formerly homeless activist who is organizing homeless in Long Beach to agitate for more city help. “He is horrible, absolutely horrible. He was a complete idiot when he spoke to the homeless coalition.” BALLOT ROUNDUP

Voters in 18 Southeast / Long Beach-area cities will go to polls.

LONG SHOTS IN LONG BEACH MAYORAL RACE

Thomas (Ski) Demski

A champion of the American flag who likes to sing his campaign slogans in a toneless voice, Demski ran and lost in the last mayoral race. Among his campaign pledges are promises to “continue to fly our large American flag proudly” and “to uphold my Santa image.”

Demski, a white-bearded 60-year-old who resembles Santa Claus, says the city’s crosswalks need to be repainted and that yellow street lights need to be replaced with white ones.

David E. Kaye

This is Kaye’s second try for the mayor’s seat. A 58-year-old landlord, Kaye says that now that “the Soviet Union isn’t coming any more,” the national defense budget should be used to fight crime and drug dealers on the local level. It is the responsibility of the mayor, Kaye argues, to go to Washington, D.C., and get federal help.

He claims that the “incumbent is too involved with big developers, foreign Japanese included, to be depended upon to look after” the homeowner.

Lou Robillard

Robillard wants to hand out $100 to $1,000 every two weeks for “intelligent ideas,” and thinks that the crime problem would be greatly alleviated if criminals were banished to the desert and made “to build their own jails.”

In a ballot statement that borders on the incomprehensible, Robillard, 69, declares among other things that “city problems are not solved with paper airplanes.”

He also has proposed contracting with the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department to

police Long Beach, and doing away with most parking and traffic tickets.

A retired technical writer, Robillard ran for mayor in 1988.

Daniel Rosenberg

Rosenberg, 60, is the most persevering of the gadflies who regularly berate the City Council on a variety of issues. He recently was arrested for disrupting a council meeting when he refused to stop talking, and typically holds a small hourglass while addressing the council--in mock homage to the three-minute limit on public comments.

A vehement critic of large contributions from developers to council members, Rosenberg vows never to accept political donations of more than $100. He has led

petition drives complaining about the departure of several supermarkets from the downtown area, and has been a persistent critic of high-density apartment development.

In 1988 he ran unsuccessfully against Councilman Wallace Edgerton in the 2nd District.

Joe F. Wise

Wise, 28, believes that less is better when it comes to city government and taxes. Without being specific, Wise said he would cut city spending, perhaps eliminating some city jobs and programs. “I’d like to see some things put back in private enterprise.”

He is in favor of “responsible” development, likes to “encourage” people to become financially independent rather than relying on government assistance, and advocates holding City Council meetings at night or on weekends.

Recently a property manager, Wise is now doing bookkeeping work for a consulting firm.