82 Districts, 9 Cities Vote on Tuesday

Polls will be open from 7 a.m. to 8 p.m. Information is available during regular business hours by calling the Los Angeles County Department of Registrar-Recorder. Voters whose last names begin with the letters A through E may call (213) 727-1900; F through K, (213) 727-1902; L through Q, (213) 721-1500; and R through Z, (213) 727-1904.

Voters in Los Angeles County go to the polls Tuesday to decide largely low-key municipal contests in nine cities and to choose school board members in 67 districts.

County voters will also be electing board members for nine community college districts, four water districts and two irrigation districts.

In one of the more hotly disputed elections, voters in Compton are being asked to approve a ballot measure that will give that city a full-time mayor with a $73,452 annual salary and increased powers, including the ability to veto City Council decisions.

That salary would make Compton’s mayor--who presides over a city of 87,400--the third-highest-paid mayor in California, behind only the mayors of San Francisco and Los Angeles.

If that measure is approved, a second asks voters to decide whether current Mayor Walter R. Tucker, a dentist who receives $7,200 as part-time mayor, should be allowed to assume the full-time post Jan. 1.

The City Council is so deeply divided over the issue that two members wrote ballot arguments supporting the propositions and two wrote statements in opposition.

Also in Compton, four incumbent school board members face a crowded field of 16 challengers, including former board member Saul E. Lankster, who is currently serving a 120-day sentence in County Jail after being convicted of selling false driving school diplomas from a traffic school he owns.

In northwestern Los Angeles County, the fight over three City Council seats in Agoura Hills has centered around charges that council members have failed to implement slow growth, as promised during their 1982 campaigns when the eight-square-mile city of 20,000 was incorporated. A coalition of homeowners hopes to oust Mayor John Hood, an insurance man who has supported several controversial development projects.

3 Seats Contested

Three City Council seats are also being contested next door to Agoura Hills in Westlake Village. Mayor Irwin Shane, a retired educator, is seeking reelection by promising to continue to protect the quiet atmosphere of the bedroom community of 11,400.

Shane has been criticized for supporting a 1982 ordinance reducing rents in a mobile home park where he lives.

In Pasadena, a proposed charter amendment has generated controversy. Officials had touted it as a means of saving taxpayers almost $400,000 a year by transferring most of the city prosecutor’s duties to the Los Angeles County district attorney’s office.

A week before the election, however, Dist. Atty. Ira Reiner, who opposes the transfer, notified Pasadena City Manager Donald McIntyre that the county would charge $496,949 in reallocated tax revenues to take over prosecution of misdemeanor violations of state law.

Angry city officials charged that the county’s timing on the notification was designed to influence voters to defeat the amendment.

The proposition is supported by the League of Women Voters and the Pasadena Chamber of Commerce and is opposed by the Pasadena Police Officers Assn. and Pasadena on the Move, a recently formed grass-roots organization that monitors City Hall.

San Marino Measure

In neighboring San Marino, voters are being asked to approve a special four-year tax of up to $145 a year for each parcel of property in the San Marino Unified School District. The measure, which requires a two-thirds vote for approval, is being supported by San Marino’s mayor, Chamber of Commerce and eight of nine candidates for three school board seats.

The tax would raise $700,000 a year needed to avoid cutbacks in school programs and to pay for building maintenance, according to the school board. If less money is needed, board members said, the tax would be reduced.

In the only other money measures on the ballot, voters in Lancaster will be asked to decide on two proposals to levy special property taxes to raise $29 million for construction of an underpass at a railroad crossing and to provide drainage improvements.