Council Race Rages as City Battles Problems : Elections: A new three-member majority could shift the tide on budget and revenue issues, as well as a feud with Chamber of Commerce.

By RICHARD WINTON

Oct. 28, 1993 12 AM PT

SPECIAL TO THE TIMES

DUARTE — Voters could elect a new majority to the City Council on Tuesday at a time when Duarte is struggling to maintain services and attract business amid a feud between the council and Chamber of Commerce.

Eight candidates, including the outgoing president of the chamber, are running for three seats on the five-member council. Incumbents Margaret Finlay and James Kirchner are defending their seats, while another seat is open with the retirement of Mayor John C. Van Doren.

Finlay, Van Doren and two other council members voted in December to end a $50,000 annual contract with the chamber for business promotional service, arguing that the organization was no longer effective. Kirchner dissented. Since the vote, the chamber has waged a war of words against the council and charged that the city has discouraged businesses from joining the group.

A top issue in the campaign is how to balance the city’s budget. The city has tapped its reserves to balance its budget for the last two years because expenditures have exceeded revenues. The state has taken $1.6 million in property tax revenue from the city and the Duarte Redevelopment Agency during that period.

Attracting businesses and boosting sales tax revenue are also issues. Two auto dealerships have closed in the last two years.

“There’s a crisis of confidence in the city,” said Phillip R. Reyes, outgoing chamber president and member of the Duarte Unified School District board. He wants to renew the city’s $50,000 contract with the chamber.

Reyes and Kirchner represent two votes for restoring the chamber’s funding. If elected, they and one of the other candidates could form a new council majority with the potential to change that as well as other city policies.

Reyes, a 38-year-old real estate broker, said he wants to make City Hall more responsive to residents and businesses. He said he will achieve this through monthly meetings of city officials and community groups.

He said the city should have done more to keep the Mitsubishi and Toyota car dealerships in town. City Hall’s business permit processes should be streamlined and officials should be actively looking for new firms to move to the city, he said.

Finlay, who was appointed to the council three years ago, rejects the notion that she and some of her colleagues have blocked business growth in the city.

“We’re not anti-business,” said Finlay, 40, who with her husband owns a tire business in Montclair. She said the opening of a Spaghetti Factory restaurant last year and a Staples office supply store in 1991 show that the city is business-friendly.

In explaining her position on funding the chamber, Finlay said the group was no longer effective because its board had been stymied by months of infighting and resignations.

She said the city’s finances are her top priority. She said she believes that the city must find new ways to raise revenue. As an example, she cites Duarte’s role last year in handling a bond issue for the City of Hope National Medical Center. The city earned a $150,000 fee that otherwise might have gone to the state.

“I am proud of what’s been accomplished in the last few years. We’ve met the needs of our youth with a day-care center and YMCA center and a new baseball field,” Finlay said.

Kirchner said he would consider cutting back some city services. “We have very serious financial problems,” he said.

Funding for public safety must be protected, he said, but the city must consider cost-saving partnerships with other cities and institutions. He cited as examples attempts by Duarte to join with other cities to contract for trash collection and a recent deal in which Duarte and Azusa contracted for street sweeping.

Kirchner, 48, is a computer data manager for Kaiser Permanente regional business offices in Pasadena. A former president of the Chamber of Commerce, he said he would like to restore chamber funding. “The council and the chamber need to come to an understanding. We each need to extend a hand,” he said.

Lino Paras, a 47-year-old controller, said that the city must be more efficient and that higher taxes and assessments are not needed to support services. The third-time candidate, who is endorsed by four school board members, said he believes that the city must be more flexible to the needs of business and attract more small businesses.

Paras is a community activist who led efforts to save Duarte’s historic old schoolhouse, which is now the home of the Spaghetti Factory restaurant, from destruction.

The other four candidates are lesser-known in the city’s political arena. Three have lived in the community less than five years: Omar Smalley, a grocery clerk; John Prescott, a physicist, and Eleanor Taylor, head of a nonprofit legal education foundation. The fourth, write-in candidate Michael Munoz, is an engineer and lifelong Duarte resident.

Taylor, a 34-year-old native of the San Gabriel Valley, said her experience in managing a nonprofit foundation would allow her to tackle the city’s biggest problem: “lack of money.” Unlike others, she is not accepting campaign contributions. “I don’t believe you should pay to have access to city government,” she said.

Smalley, 26, said he carries no baggage from previous political disputes. Smalley said he hopes his candidacy will encourage more minorities to get involved in local politics.

Another novice candidate is Prescott, 29. He said his technical background as an aerospace physicist will help him solve city problems. “I will bring a fresh approach to the city,” he said.

Munoz is running as a write-in because his nomination papers fell short of the number of required signatures. He is active in local politics and is a member of a panel trying to cure the city’s financial problems.