Election Had Usual Quirks and Oddities

Despite the failure of Tuesday’s statewide elections to excite much voter interest, there were the usual legal tangles as the last votes were counted. Or deliberately not counted, as in San Mateo County where the dead sheriff may or may not have won reelection.

Another clouded election result was in Riverside County, where the man who finished second in the contest for coroner and presumably would go into a runoff is not eligible to serve because he pleaded guilty to two felonies just before the election.

Elsewhere, San Francisco proponents of a 20-year campaign to tear down the raised part of the Embarcadero Freeway failed to convince the voters; an Oakland rent control measure lost, and veteran San Diego County Supervisor Paul Eckert was defeated in a startling upset.

Ballots Sealed

The ballots in the San Mateo County sheriff’s race between the late Sheriff Brendan Maguire and San Francisco Mint security officer Jim White were sealed Wednesday while the courts sought to straighten out a legal quandary.

Maguire died April 21, leaving White the only live candidate on the ballot. Seven write-in candidates jumped in to oppose White, who once lost a deputy’s job in Texas for failing to disclose that he had shot a man.

Several of his opponents urged voters to elect the dead Maguire so that county supervisors could appoint a sheriff until a special election next year. The board got permission from the Legislature to delay the sheriff’s election until Aug. 26 so more candidates could enter.

White, however, appealed to the state Supreme Court, which ordered that ballots be cast on Tuesday--then sealed pending a hearing on Friday before the state 1st District Court of Appeal on whether the move to postpone the election was constitutional.

If that body decides it was, the ballots will be discarded and a new election will be held Aug. 26. If the appellate court upholds White’s appeal, Tuesday’s ballots will be counted. If White received more than 50% of the votes, he will be sheriff. If the late Sheriff Maguire got more than 50%, a sheriff will be appointed pending another election.

If no one received more than 50%, a runoff election will be held in November.

Despite all the publicity the race had, only 47% (the statewide average Tuesday was 40%) of San Mateo County’s voters went to the polls. “The sheriff’s election did not fire up the populace,” observed Marvin Church, county clerk-recorder who had expected a 57% turnout.

In Riverside County, longtime Deputy Coroner Raymond L. Carrillo was the top vote-getter in the contest to replace the retiring William J. Dykes, 61, as Riverside County coroner-public administrator.

Although he failed to win a majority of the votes, Carrillo claimed he should be declared the winner without a runoff in November because the second-place winner, former Chief Deputy Coroner Carl B. Smith Jr., pleaded guilty in April to felony charges of perjury and conspiracy to obstruct justice after an investigation of illegal hiring practices in the coroner’s office.

Fined, Gets Probation

Smith was sentenced last Friday to five years’ probation and was fined $9,000. He resigned as chief deputy April 17 and abandoned his campaign--but that was too late to take his name off the ballot. The district attorney’s office and Deputy County Counsel Bill Katzenstein said on Tuesday that Smith could not take office.

Another deputy coroner, R.M. (Mickey) Worthington, who came in behind Smith, contended that Smith’s votes don’t count and that he, Worthington, is entitled to a runoff with Carrillo.

Neither Deputy Dist. Atty. Steve Cunnison nor Katzenstein could say Wednesday whether Carrillo would be declared the winner or whether he would face Smith or Worthington in a runoff.

In San Francisco, voters turned down two advisory measures that asked voters whether the raised part of the 27-year-old, 1.2-mile Embarcadero Freeway should be demolished and replaced by a tree-lined boulevard to give the public better access to the waterfront and improve traffic.

Backers of the plan to do away with the freeway contend that it is noisy and ugly and that the proposed change would increase public use of public transit, cut down on traffic into the congested Financial District and afford more residents a view of San Francisco Bay.

70,000 Cars a Day

But opponents argued that tearing down an artery carrying 70,000 cars a day between the Financial District and the Bay Bridge would be a waste of money. Proposition I, which called for the demolition, failed by a vote of 83,528 to 40,106. Proposition J, which would have replaced it with a six-lane, tree-lined boulevard, fell short by a vote of 71,480 to 50,970.

Mayor Dianne Feinstein called the outcome “a victory for the automobile” and an “anti-environmental vote.” Although it was only an advisory vote, Feinstein said it would “kill” the long campaign to eliminate the freeway.

San Francisco voters also turned down--88,995 votes to 33,000--Proposition D, under which Feinstein hoped to transfer control of the city’s Civil Service system from the Civil Service Commission to a commission appointed by the mayor.

The measure’s supporters contended that the move would modernize the system and make government “fair and efficient.” Opponents convinced most of the voters that the existing system had worked well enough for 50 years and that if it wasn’t broken, there was no point in fixing it.

Oakland voters turned down--51,230 votes to 13,073--a rent control measure that would have amended the City Charter, immediately reducing rents on residential and commercial property to June 3, 1984, levels. It would have created housing boards to determine rents based on average income levels in Oakland and to take over vacant buildings for use by the poor and homeless.

Socialist Sponsors

The proposition was sponsored by members of the Uhuru House African People’s Socialist Party.

San Diego County Supervisor Paul Eckert surprised forecasters--and presumably himself--by coming in third in his bid for reelection, leaving Escondido attorney Clyde Romney and Oceanside City Councilman John MacDonald to face each other in a November runoff.

Both MacDonald, who won 29% of the vote, and Romney, who won 26.3%, also seemed surprised. The latter described the outcome as “beyond our wildest imagination.” He attributed the results to voter concern over the explosive population growth in northern San Diego County.

That growth made itself felt as two new North County communities--Solana Beach and Encinitas--posted overwhelmingly favorable votes for incorporation and local rule. The newly designated Encinitas comprises the communities of Encinitas, Leucadia, Cardiff and Olivenhain.

In Santee, east of San Diego, voters endorsed by a greater than 3-1 margin the city’s only ballot measure, aimed at prohibiting all sexually oriented business such as topless bars, adult bookstores and X-rated theaters. The initiative passed even though city officials were given legal advice that it is clearly in violation of the U.S. Constitution’s free-speech provisions.

Contributing to this article were Times staff writers Crocker Coulson in San Diego and Mariann Hansen in San Francisco.