Growing Voter Discontent Felt by Incumbents

After an extraordinary night of upsets across suburban Los Angeles County, once-unbeatable city council members were sorting through the remnants of their political careers Wednesday, while victorious “outsiders” planned dramatic changes for local government.

Newcomers were elected to the city councils in 49 of the 56 cities with council elections, most at the expense of incumbents. Three cities saw all three of their incumbents ousted for the first time ever.

The results reflected a growing discontent with congested residential neighborhoods, crime, drug abuse and a general decline in the quality of life in communities that were once isolated from the social problems of the inner city, political scientists said.

Voters also rewarded the efforts of challengers on shoestring budgets who sought to displace entrenched and complacent “old-boy networks.” Incumbents had not even bothered to campaign in La Puente, where no officeholder had lost to a newcomer since 1968. On Tuesday, all three veteran councilmen were swept from office.

Meanwhile, the growing urbanization and ethnic diversity of the suburbs led to other electoral surprises, as Latino, black and Asian candidates won significant victories in Monterey Park, Lancaster and Huntington Park.

And the movement to slow growth in the outskirts of the metropolis gained momentum as ballot initiatives placing strict new limits on development were approved in Culver City and Monterey Park, while slow-growth candidates won city council seats in the booming desert city of Palmdale, Santa Clarita and elsewhere.

Social scientists said the upsets in several cities point to a growing importance of politics in suburban life. As small municipalities grapple with a host of social problems, neighborhood block clubs and homeowner groups often have become a militant voice in small-town politics.

“I would not attribute it to slow growth as much as to the increased politicization of the new groups in town,” said Richard Peiser, a USC professor of regional planning. “I see it as a very positive change. They’re speaking up and their votes are counting.”

Even the low voter turnout that is traditional in suburban elections worked in favor of those attempting to defeat incumbents. With about 15% of registered voters casting ballots in most cities, the difference between winning and losing was often only a few hundred votes.

This year, it took only a slight increase in voter turnout to tip the scales in the challengers’ favor.

Less than 200 ballots separated victors from losers in La Puente, where the turnout was an anemic 16%--still the highest level of voter participation there since 1976.

Before Tuesday’s election, the three incumbents admitted they had done little campaigning. No candidate forums were held--the incumbents said they would be pointless, since few La Puente residents would attend them. Nor did any of the incumbents walk the city’s eight precincts.

But victorious challenger Manuel J. Garcia, 52, did walk the La Puente streets, knocking on voters’ doors to pitch his candidacy.

Garcia said the incumbents’ overconfidence played an important role in his upset victory.

“At the beginning they thought this was just business as usual,” Garcia said. “By the end they were working hard, but it was just too late. The challengers had a good start and the momentum was there.”

Voter turnout was a relatively high 26% in Whittier, where debate over the city’s handling of rebuilding after the 1987 earthquake led to one of the most contentious campaigns in memory.

Slow-growth candidates Bob Henderson and Helen Rahder apparently profited most from the additional votes, winning both open council seats. Rahder’s victory was especially surprising. A firebrand preservationist, her views were considered by many to be too extreme to win a council seat in the predominantly Republican city.

“The apathy of the past is gone,” said Rahder, 38. “People have always felt that their vote didn’t count and the old boys would always be in power. But look at Eastern Europe. When you get enough people thinking the same way, all you have to do is get the ball rolling. And in Whittier, we got the ball rolling after the earthquake.”

Two candidates who mounted similar, grass-roots campaigns also won seats in Lancaster, where voters made history by electing the high-desert city’s first black councilman.

The Rev. Henry Hearns, 56, finished second among 15 candidates in his first political bid, surprising many in Palmdale, where blacks have settled in large numbers in recent years and now make up about 5% of the population.

Hearns’ supporters said race was not a major factor in his election.

“The voters saw a good, honest man and they voted for him,” said Milt Huckaby of the Lancaster Coalition of Neighborhood Organizations, a homeowner group whose endorsement boosted Hearns and fellow victor George Root past several better-financed candidates. “The man has got a tremendous amount of ability.”

The tide of opposition victories was perhaps strongest in the San Gabriel Valley, where voters ousted 18 incumbent council members, including all those running in La Puente, Monterey Park and Temple City.

Challengers in Temple City said much had changed in the community since some of the incumbents first took office in the 1970s. Incumbents Ken Gillanders and Tom Atkins were both running for their fourth four-year terms, while Mary Lou Swain was seeking her third term.

“I just think people are ready for a change,” said winning challenger Mary Louise Manning. “Eight to 12 years (on the council) is too long.”

Another victorious challenger, Bobbie McGowan, said the longstanding council members were unable to keep up with the many forces transforming Temple City, once a quiet bedroom community surrounded by fruit trees and open fields. “We need to make Temple City again a very desirable place to live,” she said.

The growing power and political sophistication of Asians in Monterey Park was reflected in the defeat of two incumbents and the election of a second Asian to the City Council.

Defeated Councilman and former Mayor Barry L. Hatch had made many enemies in recent years among the city’s minority groups with his calls for tighter controls of illegal immigration.

“I was happy to serve,” Hatch said. “I did it my way.”

In all, more than 78 new council members were elected countywide on Tuesday.

In La Puente, City Manager Frank Ruiz was quick to respond to the dramatic election results in his community. The first thing in the morning, he ordered three new nameplates and searched for copies of “Roberts’ Rules of Order” for the challengers who had swept the three longtime incumbents out of office.

“I’ve never seen one like that,” Ruiz said of Tuesday’s election. “Not in 22 years.”

Times staff writers Gabe Fuentes, Jesse Katz, Elizabeth Lu, Steve Padilla and Sebastian Rotella contributed to this story.