Fire, Library Measures Appear to Be Winning

In local elections ignored by near-record numbers of voters Tuesday, a high-stakes bond measure to pay for Los Angeles County’s fire and paramedic services appeared headed for approval by the required two-thirds of the electorate, while labor unions won a majority of seats on a commission to rewrite the City Charter.

With most of the vote counted in Los Angeles’ high-profile 11th City Council District, Cindy Miscikowski--longtime deputy to the retiring Marvin Braude--was leading Georgia Mercer, onetime aide to Mayor Richard Riordan.

Farther south, in the contest for two seats on the turbulent Inglewood Unified School District board, incumbent Larry Aubry lost to former school secretary Eveline Ross, while college librarian Alice Grigsby defeated police Sgt. Leonard Ross. In the City Council race, accountant Jerome Horton won over Inglewood school board President Gloria Gray.

With a two-thirds majority needed for passage, school bond measures in three school districts remained up in the air late Tuesday. Other such measures appeared to have passed by slim margins in three districts, the ABC Unified School District, East Whittier City School District and Monrovia Unified School District. Similar measures appeared to have lost in Pomona and Torrance.

In races for Los Angeles Community College District seats, college instructor Kelly Candaele had a wide lead over Richard Yanez, while the race between incumbent Althea Baker and college instructor Nancy Pearlman remained too close to call.

The six-way race to fill a vacancy on the Huntington Park City Council remained up in the air Tuesday. With 100 absentee ballots remaining to be counted today), Linda Luz Guervara led Edward Escareno by 53 votes.

In Los Angeles County, Harvey Englander, campaign consultant for the fire services Proposition E campaign, claimed success early in the evening.

“It’s a victory,” said Englander, a veteran of many local campaigns, at 10:40 p.m. “So much so that I’m going home.”

“The voters have decided that they are willing to pay for services they know are important and in areas where they know it is being well spent,” Englander said.

“I think we were able to communicate the message that if Prop E failed there would be closures of fire stations and delays in response time, and that the $4 a month was a small price to pay for the services.”

The county’s library measure, Proposition L, was nip and tuck throughout the evening but appeared to be maintaining a razor-thin approval margin.

“I think we’re gonna get it,” said county Librarian Sandra Reuben, awaiting the results at union headquarters in Los Angeles. “I’m getting beyond cautiously optimistic to optimistic. We see it as a terrific victory for the people who use the libraries of Los Angeles County.”

For a seat on the Los Angeles Unified School District board, retired teacher Valerie Fields leaped to a commanding early lead over labor lawyer Kenneth J. Sackman.

Los Angeles officials estimated about 12% of the city’s 1.34 million registered voters had cast ballots. Dismal as it was, turnout was still slightly better than the worst on record--9% in 1983. In the 11th City Council District, site of a hot battle for the city’s only open council seat, turnout neared 17%, officials said.

In the county, where continued funding for substantial firefighting and library services hung in the balance, about 22% of registered voters went to the polls in about half the precincts counted by early Wednesday.

The low interest in Tuesday’s contests left precinct workers with lots of time on their hands. For example, at 10 a.m. in one polling place in Hancock Park, where turnout is usually strong, a tomb-like stillness prevailed.

“I’ve been busier,” quipped one precinct worker to the only voter in sight--only the 18th to cast a ballot there by midmorning.

Because the extremely low turnout was anticipated, many campaigns tried to get sympathetic voters to use absentee ballots. Some campaigns provided absentee ballot application forms in mailers or other materials.

In the 11th Council District, Los Angeles’ most affluent and one of its most politically active districts, the hard-fought Mercer-Miscikowski contest marked the first time in more than 30 years that the council seat has been open. Councilman Marvin Braude, after initially planning to seek another term, decided to retire.

The battle between Miscikowski, Braude’s former chief of staff, and Mercer, Mayor Richard Riordan’s former liaison to the San Fernando Valley, women’s groups and the Jewish community, has been expensive: Mercer spent $566,000, Miscikowski $225,000.

Mercer, a Tarzana resident, surprised many by outpolling Brentwood resident Miscikowski in the primary.

Both ended their runs with a flurry of get-out-the-vote efforts. Seeking an edge wherever they could, the campaigns tailored their appeals to constituencies ranging from Armenian Americans to members of the Green Party. The district straddles the Santa Monica Mountains, stretching from Mar Vista and Pacific Palisades to Van Nuys and Woodland Hills.

Miscikowski stressed her 22 years in City Hall as a problem solver and sought to win over Republican voters from the district’s eastern Valley edge. Mercer sold herself as someone who sees City Hall from a community perspective, and sought to cut into her opponent’s Westside support, while holding the Valley base that put her first in the primary.

The drive to overhaul the city’s 72-year-old charter was sparked last summer by threats of secession from the city by the San Fernando Valley. But it quickly turned into a political power struggle between the City Council--which created a 21-member appointed panel to rewrite the charter--and the mayor, who sponsored and financed a drive to get a rival, elected commission on the ballot.

The key difference is that the appointed panel’s charter proposal must pass muster with the council before it can go to the ballot. The elected panel, however, can take its proposal directly to the voters. By law, all charter changes require popular approval.

In April, Riordan won voters approval of his proposal for an elected commission--but not most of his choices for the 15 slots. Despite a $300,000 campaign fund to support a slate of 12 candidates, only three of the mayor’s choices were elected. The city’s labor unions, which spent only $140,000 on their candidates, helped elect seven candidates on their slate.

In the run-up to Tuesday’s balloting, Riordan’s committee, Citizens for a Better Los Angeles, spent $125,000 more on six of the runoff candidates. Labor spent an additional $67,000 on its six candidates. (Two candidates were endorsed by both camps.) The unions needed only one more seat to form a majority on the panel.

Outside Los Angeles, voters in many parts of the county decided whether to keep on paying special assessments for fire protection and paramedic services--Proposition E--and for public libraries--Proposition L.

At stake were $62 million in services, which became subject to voter approval when the tax-cutting Proposition 218 was passed by statewide voters in November.

Proposition E sought more than $50 million from property owners in the county’s unincorporated areas and 52 cities that contract with the county for services for firefighters and paramedic services. Proposition L was aimed at restoring library services and averting further reductions in branch libraries hours. The assessment districts, which were started by the Board of Supervisors before voter approval was required, cost property owners about $50 a year for firefighting efforts and $22 for libraries.

The firefighting assessment campaign raised about $550,000 to get its message across, and backers found themselves treading a fine line. They wanted to warn of the consequences of the measure’s failure--up to 20 fire stations closed and hundreds of firefighters and paramedics laid off--without resorting to scare tactics that might boomerang.

Library measure backers had less to spend--about $75,000--but were hoping that their unconventional messages would do the trick. For example, last week, they had schoolchildren write the names of their favorite books on balloons and send them skyward.

Eight school districts in the county asked voters’ permission to issue bonds, totaling nearly $467 million, to repair campuses, add classrooms, build schools and strengthen buildings against earthquakes. Some districts also planned to upgrade wiring to accommodate computers and make other technological improvements.

The school bond campaigns for the most part encountered little or no organized opposition, leaving backers free to concentrate on getting out the vote.

But in Torrance, sponsors of Measure A, which would authorize $80.54 million in school district bonds, were challenged by the No on A committee. Its chairman, Rick Marshall, said the bonds were too costly (initially, an assessment of about $49 a year on a single-family home) and complained that some of the campus improvements were not necessary.

On Monday, with help from lawyers with the libertarian Individual Rights Foundation, the No on A committee won a court skirmish over pro-Measure A signs at school campuses that doubled as polling places. Alleging that the signs amounted to electioneering, the committee’s lawyers secured the right to post their own signs if the district did not remove its posters by day’s end.

Other school bond measures were on ballots in the Glendale Unified School District ($186 million), ABC Unified in Cerritos ($59 million), East Whittier City School District ($20 million), El Segundo Unified ($24 million), Hawthorne School District ($28 million), Monrovia Unified ($34 million) and Pomona Unified ($35 million.)

In the runoff contest for the District 4 seat on the Los Angeles school board, underdog Sackman ran a scrappy campaign against Fields by tapping labor union money and hammering on his opponent’s age and support from the powerful Los Angeles teachers union. Sackman, 46, said Fields, 71, would be controlled by United Teachers-Los Angeles, which contributed $55,000 to her campaign and spent $100,000 more on her behalf.

Fields raised nearly $190,000, compared to about $110,000 by Sackman, who received a large share of his funds from two dozen trade unions.

In the Inglewood Unified School District, an especially contentious atmosphere permeated the two runoffs for board seats. Sparked by the controversial firing of Supt. McKinley Nash in April by a three-member majority, the fireworks continued right through election day.

Board President Gloria Gray--one of the candidates for Inglewood City Council--called a special board meeting for today to consider a contract for a new superintendent whose name she declined to disclose. The County Office of Education responded by appointing a fiscal advisor to take control of the district’s finances and prevent the hiring of a new superintendent. It was the second such county takeover of the district’s troubles finances since 1993.

Three of the four contenders in Tuesday’s election have said they want to reinstate Nash, making it possible to bring back the superintendent on a 3-2 vote once the election winners are seated June 22.

In Irwindale, city officials sought voter permission to continue three business levies, which together bring in almost $1.5 million annually.

Times staff writers Nancy Hill-Holtzman, Hugo Martin, Julie Tamaki; correspondents Deborah Belgum, John Cox, Tracy Johnson and Richard Winton contributed to this report.

* STADIUM MEASURE: The vote on bonds to help build a new stadium in San Francisco was neck-and-neck. C7