Local voters also favored Davis recall
By Michael Picarella
Acorn Staff Writer

Election results show Arnold Schwarzenegger (R) as new governor of California, but if voters in Los Angeles County had their way, Gov. Gray Davis (D) wouldn’t have been recalled. With few ballots left to be counted, 51 percent of L.A. County voters said no to the recall.

While the county election totals show a different perspective on the governor’s recall race, Agoura Hills, Calabasas and Westlake Village voters more closely followed the statewide results.

Recent totals, which still didn’t include a few ballots, showed the following:

Agoura Hills

Yes on the recall: 3,576 (62%)

No on the recall: 2,179 (38%)

Votes for Schwarzenegger: 3,457

Votes for Bustamante (D): 1,286

Votes for Tom McClintock (R): 845

Westlake Village

Yes on the recall: 1,666 (65%)

No on the recall: 902 (35%)

Votes for Schwarzenegger: 1,626

Votes for Bustamante: 455

Votes for McClintock: 437

Calabasas

Yes on the recall: 2,755 (56%)

No on the recall: 2,177 (44%)

Votes for Schwarzenegger: 2,813

Votes for Bustamante: 1,221

Votes for McClintock: 618

"I think we’re going to see, hopefully, a lot of positive changes," said Westlake Village Mayor Chris Mann. "I’m a longtime supporter of state Sen. Tom McClintock, but my second choice was Arnold."

Mann agreed with many of Schwarzenegger’s ideas, but a lot of them, Mann said, were borrowed from McClintock.

"We’ll have to see how affective he is in implementing those ideas," Mann said.

Calabasas Mayor James Bozajian said he’s still surprised that California recalled its governor.

"A recall is a very, very serious matter," Bozajian said. "We’ve never had a governor recalled and we’ve never even had a recall election to my knowledge since the recall statutes were implemented earlier in the last century."

Bozajian said he’s optimistic about Schwarzenegger as governor. But he added that he was surprised by the results in Calabasas.

"I would have expected a difference," Bozajian said. "If you look at the other races over the years, Westlake Village and Hidden Hills have Republican majorities. Agoura Hills is split almost evenly down the middle by a few dozen registered voters. It’s one way or the other each year. But Calabasas has a plurality of Democrats.

"I think in many ways this was a nonpartisan result because Schwarzenegger is pretty middle of the road and he’s not overly political or overly partisan," Bozajian said.

Agoura Hills Mayor Jeff Reinhardt said he wonders if Schwarzenegger will do as he promised and revoke the vehicle license fee increase.

"The real issue, from my perspective, is how it will affect the cities," Reinhardt said. "We were, through this last state budget process, dangling on a thread, if you will, wondering if we would have the traditional sources of revenue that we count on when we prepare our budget. Unlike the state, we are mandated to have a budget in place and operating on July 1. We can’t carry that over. So when the state does go late in bringing forth its budget, it can cause radical shifts to our already adopted and operating budget.

"This election seems to throw a lot of things back on the table in terms of whether or not the cities can be assured of having adequate resources to meet their already committed to funding obligations," Reinhardt said.

An example of funding obligations is the Agoura Hills $23 million Kanan Road/101 Freeway interchange project, which relies on money from the state, according to Reinhardt. The vehicle license fees are directly given to cities and counties, he said, and if Schwarzenegger revokes the fee increase, the project is in danger of losing its state funding.

"That’s just one issue," Reinhardt said. Time will tell how California voters’ decision will affect them, he added.

For more information about the election for L.A. County, log onto the Internet and visit the Website at www.lavote.net.