Bozajian, Devine, Harrison elected in city of Calabasas
By Sharon Makokian
Acorn Staff Writer

Calabasas City Council incumbents James Bozajian and Lesley Devine led the election results Tuesday, retaining their seats on the council despite a negative smear campaign waged against them. Planning commissioner Michael Harrison won the third open council seat.

Bozajian swept Tuesday’s election with 1,933 votes (30 percent). Bozajian was pleased with the results and said he felt "vindicated" of charges made against him in several mailings that were mailed to residents just before the election.

"Four negative pieces were sent out by an outside group that raised some money and didn’t disclose it properly," he said.

The slick mailings targeted Bozajian and Devine, while endorsing candidates Karmen Brower and Marcus Allen Frishman.

"As a candidate when you get hit by a negative piece, you never know the effects (it could have) … it really hurts … to be slammed like those pieces did. I’m glad the pieces didn’t work … The candidates that stayed clean and didn’t wage attacks came out on top," Bozajian said.

Both Frishman and Brower said they had no knowledge of the flyers and said an independent group had endorsed them and mailed the pieces.

Bozajian said he’d continue to fight the Ahmanson Ranch development, work on open space preservation and build the new civic center.

Devine, who came in second, with 1,369 votes (21.2 percent), said "for somebody who was in a squeeze play, I feel really good about it." She also said she and the council would "continue to do good things" such as preserving open space and building the library/civic center complex that would eventually include a theater.

Harrison, with 1,231 votes (19.1 percent) said he was "thrilled" to win, and would resign his planning commission post after its meeting in two weeks. However, he said he’d like to serve as a liaison between the commission and council, something requested by planning commissioner James Leewong to improve communications between the two entities.

Harrison also said he’d like council meetings to start earlier and finish earlier.

"The first thing I’d like to see is the council meeting start at 7 p.m. (currently, they start at 7:30 p.m.) and do all the announcements at the end. They become less productive after 10:30 p.m.," he said.

The councilman-elect also was pleased that incumbents Devine and Bozajian retained their seats.

"They’ve done an excellent job and will continue to serve the city well," he said.

Candidate Frishman also said he felt "the city is in fine hands with Bozajian, Devine and Harrison" and maintained his position that it’s hard to win a city office without being involved in the city beforehand.

"It’s really difficult for an outsider … to get elected in the city. If you take a look at the vote count, what you’ll see is a lineup of establishment candidates," said Frishman, who ran his campaign hoping to attract what he called "the disenfranchised."

However, Frishman, who finished sixth in a seven-candidate race with 361votes (5.6 percent) said he enjoyed the campaign and "never had so much fun losing in my life." He said he now plans to get involved with the city in some way.

The surprise of the evening was that a relatively unknown and young candidate, Matthew Hooper, came in fourth with 951 votes (14.7 percent).

"I actually expected more. I was disappointed with the turnout," he said, although he thanked all who voted for him.

"It’s hard to be upset," he said. "On Feb. 1, everybody thought I was a joke. By March 6, I was in fourth place."

Candidate Brower, who finished fifth with 422 votes (6.5 percent), said she "landed about where I figured I would."

"It was a very hard. It was a very large field. I was an utter novice and not well-financed … but it was a lot of fun, a wonderful experience," she said.

Candidate Leslie Abraham Wolf, who came in last with only 167 votes (2.5 percent), said she still wanted to get involved with the city and would approach the council about forming an "office of ethical affairs."

City clerk Robin Parker said the election ran smoothly, but she added that she would have preferred better turnout than about 20 percent.

Although there were still 200 absentee and provisional ballots yet to be counted, it couldn’t change the outcome because the difference between the third and fourth candidates was 280 votes, according to Parker.