3 Council Members Trail in Recall Election

Calling for an end to the wrangling over gambling in the city, voters in Hawaiian Gardens appeared to cast out as many as three City Council members but have apparently spared the mayor in preliminary returns of Tuesday’s special recall election.

Mayor Lupe Cabrera had a 116-vote margin with about 150 ballots left to be counted, and appeared likely to pull through a raucous recall campaign driven by hostilities over a card club approved last year by referendum.

Two of his closest allies--Robert Canada and Robert Prida-- were losing narrowly and their political nemesis and anti-card-club crusader Kathleen Navejas conceded defeat early Wednesday after preliminary returns showed her losing by almost a 3-1 margin. Prida was trailing by 60 votes out of the 1,100 cast, and Canada by 17.

Navejas will be succeeded by her lone challenger, Ralph Cesena, a businessman who had won the endorsement of the council majority. He and any other successful challengers for the council seats will be installed early Tuesday.

If Prida loses when the final votes are scheduled to be tallied Friday, his successor would be Alan a Calcote, who outdistanced two other candidates, and Canada would be succeeded by Placido Alvarez, who bested his lone challenger by nearly 400 votes.

Combatants on both sides of the recall campaigns agreed that Tuesday’s returns signaled dissatisfaction over gambling-related disputes that have occasionally spilled into the community in the last year and a half. They disagreed, however, over what the results mean for the City Council.

Some said the apparent defeat of Canada and Prida--Cabrera’s key supporters on the council--indicate that constituents want to end the insider politics of the self-proclaimed “three amigos.”

“Hopefully we’ll have a council where everybody works together but they’re all independent thinkers,” said council front-runner Calcote.

The mayor, on the other hand, said Navejas had thrown so many wrenches into city business that her absence will finally allow the council to resolve major issues such as funding the Police Department.

“I think that you’re going to see a lot of difference on the City Council,” Cabrera said. “We’re going to work better together.”

It remains unclear, however, whether the election will have much effect on the city’s overriding issue: gambling revenues. A legal challenge filed on Navejas’ behalf has tied up the casino in court, leaving doubts about city finances as well as the fate of the city’s $2.5-million-a-year Police Department.

Navejas, a five-time former mayor who is backed by gambling money from casinos in Bell Gardens, Commerce and Inglewood, vowed early Wednesday to continue her lawsuit. She has alleged that city officials were involved in a corrupt plot to turn over control of the casino to Dr. Irving Moskowitz, a former physician and developer who already operates the city’s bingo club.

Navejas’ attorney, Fredric Woocher, confirmed that the lawsuit will stand, although he said the resolve behind it may be losing momentum.

“We were fighting for the city,” Woocher said, “and if the people of the city don’t want it, at some point we’re going to let them stew in their own mess.”

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As some expected, accusations of election fraud arose early in the recall election. Police arrested a city worker Tuesday afternoon on suspicion of handling absentee ballots without proper authorization. Supporters within the mayor’s camp immediately disputed the charges, saying officers were trying to influence the election because the police union had voted to endorse Navejas.

Police dismissed the accusations of interference, adding that they requested an elections fraud investigator from the office of the secretary of state who monitored Tuesday’s balloting. They said the department has accepted the election results and that no grudges remain.

“It’s the vote of the people,” said Sgt. Ray Gilmore, president of the police union. “We won’t be disgruntled or dissatisfied.”

Many saw Tuesday’s election as a mere warmup for municipal elections coming up in March. At that point Cabrera’s, Canada’s and Prida’s seats will all be open, as will the job that Navejas hopes to fill, the position of city clerk.