City Upholds Election of Redevelopment Panel : North Hollywood: Complaints about the voting were raised solely by CRA critics who failed to gain control of the committee, an L.A. councilman says.

The Los Angeles City Council voted Tuesday to uphold the election of a citizens advisory panel dominated by proponents of redevelopment in North Hollywood, rejecting challenges by critics who have turned the panel’s meetings into bitter battles over the issue.

By an 11-0 vote, the council validated the Oct. 13 election of 21 members to form a new North Hollywood Project Area Committee.

Critics of the Community Redevelopment Agency’s efforts in North Hollywood--whose fight against development supporters brought chaos to several of the previous committee’s meetings--had filed seven challenges to the election, contending it was unfair or procedurally flawed.

Three lawmakers, led by Council President John Ferraro, who represents North Hollywood, praised the election, saying it was fairly conducted by the League of Women Voters.

Complaints about the election have been raised solely by CRA critics who failed in their bid to capture control of the committee in the election, Ferraro reminded the council.

Councilmen Richard Alatorre and Zev Yaroslavsky, the latter sometimes a sharp critic of the redevelopment agency himself, said a council panel on which they sit had scrupulously reviewed the critics’ complaints at a two-hour hearing last week and concluded that the charges were baseless.

Mildred Weller, a North Hollywood businesswoman and CRA critic who won election to the committee, warned the council that her group probably will sue to overturn the election results.

One of the critics’ major charges has been that dozens--possibly scores--of voters were allowed to cast ballots in the election before all of the candidates had been nominated, potentially depriving those candidates of votes.

According to the critics, the well-advertised ground rules for the election were that voting was not to begin until 7 p.m. on Oct. 13 and that last-minute write-in candidates could register up to that same hour and expect to have their names made known to the voters.

But about 50 tenants of a CRA-run senior citizen housing project in North Hollywood were bused to the voting site and allowed to vote before 7 p.m. as a convenience to them, the critics say.

Weller’s group identified four candidates who believed the early voting had hurt their chances.

Officials of the League of Women Voters said that it had been announced at a public meeting prior to the election that early voting would be allowed, and that no further obligation was owed to latecomer write-in candidates.