KMAX: News of the West

Hacienda Heights votes no on cityhood; goodbye hanging chads

By LOUINN LOTA
Associated Press Writer

LOS ANGELES (AP) Unincorporated Hacienda Heights will remain just that as cityhood for the community of 53,000 resoundingly failed Tuesday night.

With all 13 precincts reporting, 6,831 residents, or 63.1 percent of those voting, said no. Some 3,990 cast ballots in favor.

The balloting was a test of Asian-American voting power, as five Asian-American candidates were in the field of 17 vying for the five city council seats incorporation would have created. Two of them finished among the top five vote-getters.

With many white voters saying they were opposed to incorporating their Los Angeles suburb, political observers said Hispanic residents were likely to cast the swing vote.

At least one such voter, Julieta Vela, said she wasn't persuaded by arguments that incorporation would bring more local control to the suburb 25 miles southeast of downtown Los Angeles.

``I thought about it, the economics, the politics, whether this should be apart from other cities, and I thought, maybe not,'' she told KCAL-TV.

Hacienda Heights had tried twice before to become a city. In 1982, cityhood was taken off the ballot after a proponent falsified voters' signatures. A decade later, the issue was defeated.

Also on the ballot Tuesday were several measures to raise funds for local school districts. One passed overwhelmingly, another was defeated and a third appeared to have passed by a razor-thin margin. All needed at least a two-thirds vote, 66.66 percent, in support to pass.

In the Santa Monica-Malibu Unified School District, Measure S, nicknamed ``Save Our Schools,'' received 66.77 percent of the vote with all 35 precincts reporting. The initiative calls for raising a $6.5 million a year through increased property taxes.

It was supported by a coalition of interests that often find themselves at odds, including Santa Monica's powerful renters organization, teachers' union and businesses. However, only about one-sixth of the households in Santa Monica and one-fourth in Malibu have children under 18.

The Palos Verdes Peninsula Unified School District special parcel tax was overwhelmingly approved by voters, while the Manhattan Beach Unified School District special parcel tax proposal went down to defeat.

With all 24 precincts reporting, the vote in Palos Verdes was 72.76 percent in favor with 27.24 percent opposed.

In Manhattan Beach, the vote was 58.03 percent yes to 41.97 percent no with all 11 precincts reporting.

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Tuesday's elections also marked the last of punch-card ballots as the county moves away from a voting system that wrought havoc in Florida during the 2000 presidential election, inserting the phrases ``hanging chad,'' ``pregnant chad,'' and ``dimpled chad'' into voters' vocabulary. The California secretary of state announced on Sept. 18, 2001, that punch-card voting statewide was being phased out.

Los Angeles County will go to InkaVote, where voters use a pen to mark ballots instead of punching out a minuscule, numbered paper rectangle.

``There's going to be songs and testimonials,'' county Clerk and Registrar-Recorder Conny McCormack said of plans for a mock retirement party for punch-card ballots.

The county eventually hopes to be on electronic touch-screen voting by November 2005, but the $107 million cost may delay implementation of the system.

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On the Net:

Los Angeles County Clerk and Registrar-Recorder http://www.lavote.net

Election results at: http://rrcc.co.la.ca.us/elect/

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