Cook, Hansen, Bohr have it

Dave Brooks

Don Hansen and Keith Bohr will be the two new faces on the City

Council, joined by incumbent Debbie Cook who was reelected to her

second term in office.

Restaurant owner Joe Carchio came in a close fourth place,

followed by Jim Moreno and then Steve Ray.

“What excites me is that at the end of the day, enough people got

into the polling booth and checked off my name,” Hansen said. “I

really hope I left an impression on them.”

It was Hansen’s second run at office having lost in 2002 by

several hundred votes.

The mostly cordial contest took an ugly turn in the final weeks of

the election after a Republican mailer surfaced from Mayor Cathy

Green making veiled criticisms of Cook and Councilwoman Connie

Boardman, who did not run for reelection. The piece, which endorsed

Hansen and Carchio, used what looked like city letterhead, which

critics like Tim Geddes said could confuse voters into thinking the

mailer was an official document from the city.

“It’s outrageous and misleading,” Geddes said.

The Republican Party of Orange County paid for the advertisement,

which criticized “Democrats on the City Council” for abandoning the

invocation, referring to 2001 when Cook removed the prayer from the

agenda when she served as mayor. The letter also criticized Cook for

not supporting a May 2003 plan to cover the city with yellow ribbons

in support of troops in Iraq.

“Over and over, Democrats continue to demonstrate that they are

out of touch with the voters in our city,” Green wrote in the mailer.

Green said he did not design the mailer and didn’t know that it

would include the official symbol of the city, she said.

“I was just trying to help the people that I endorsed,” she said.

“It was against someone else, as much as it was for someone else.”

During a celebration party at her house, Cook seemed irritated by

the literature, but said in general, she tries to “disregard all

mailers.”

“Nothing surprises me in politics,” she said.

Cook, who was first elected in 2000, captured 24,729 votes in her

second run, about 8,000 more than Hansen. She attributed her victory

to her grass-roots campaign and her incumbency, adding that she was

ready to get back on the dais.

“Elections are just a distraction from the job,” she said.

Early returns put Hansen comfortably behind Bohr, whom he later

overcame with a margin barely above 500 votes.

“All of my base from the last election came back this time,” said

Hansen. “Not only did I have them, but I was able to add new people

and I think it’s going to be those combinations that will help me

secure a victory.”

Financial records show that Hansen raised and spent a fraction of

what Bohr invested into his campaign. Both candidates received

several soft-money endorsements from labor unions and real estate

interests, but Bohr raised about $36,000 and spent another $50,000

out of his own pocket, while Hansen raised only $16,000 and spent about $10,000 of his own money.

Bohr, lost in 2002 by a small margin, said he felt the money he

poured into the race was worth it.

“I feel justified because I won,” he said. “It wasn’t really a

matter of money, it’s all the work that goes into it.”

The top seven vote getters Tuesday all made a run for the office

in 2002.

“The money that was spent on this campaign was kind of

disappointing,” Ray said. “I didn’t raise a lot because I have a

philosophical problem with money in the campaign. I think it’s a good

lesson in determining what the voters respond to.”

* DAVE BROOKS covers City Hall. He can be reached at (714)

965-7173 or by e-mail at dave.brooks@latimes.com.