LOCAL ELECTIONS / INGLEWOOD CITY COUNCIL : Duel Between Policy Wonks Contrasts With Noisy Battle : Runoff: Opponents of Councilmen Tabor and Scardenzan both question incumbents’ effectiveness. But the flavor of the two races is markedly different.

Two longtime Inglewood city councilmen face tough runoff elections on Tuesday in which the challengers are questioning whether the city is better off than it was 12 years ago when the incumbents first took office.

How the voters answer the question should determine whether Daniel K. Tabor, 38, and Anthony Scardenzan, 64, are reelected to serve what would be their fourth terms.

Tabor, who represents District 1 on the five-member City Council, is being challenged by Curren Price Jr., a 42-year-old economic development consultant who, along with his wife, owns a print shop in Inglewood.

In District 2, Scardenzan, the 64-year-old owner of a Gardena tool-and-dye company, is battling with community activist Judith L. Dunlap, a 48-year-old former elementary school teacher. Like Price, Dunlap is a newcomer to electoral politics.

Though incumbency and the quality of leadership are the main issues in both election contests, the flavor of the two races is markedly different.

The Tabor-Price contest has been a quiet affair between two young, look-alike policy wonks. In contrast, the Dunlap-Scardenzan contest has been a scrappy, lively battle peppered with mudslinging and name-calling.

Dunlap says Scardenzan does not deserve another term because during the last 12 years the city has had steadily increasing taxes, crime and high-density growth and declining municipal services.

“They’re taking the taxpayers to the cleaners,” Dunlap said of the current city leaders.

Dunlap criticized Scardenzan for agreeing to pay what she says are excessively high salaries to top city administrators. Scardenzan said that issue is nothing more than a racist ploy to have the administrators in question, all of whom are white, replaced by African-Americans. Dunlap is white but Scardenzan, who is also white, said that Dunlap is under the influence of Councilman Garland Hardeman, who is black and openly hostile to the administrators.

As another example of high taxes and fewer services, Dunlap pointed to a special assessment district approved by the voters in 1988 to pay for 20 new police officers.

“We are not getting what we paid for,” she contended. The Police Department has only three more officers than it had in 1988 when the assessment was approved, Dunlap said.

According to 1988-89 budget figures supplied by Assistant City Manager Norman Cravens, there were 187 officers in 1988. Currently, according to figures supplied by the Police Department, there are 199 officers. According to the same figures, that number will climb to 202 next year.

Increased crime, Scardenzan insisted, is not the city’s fault but is due to other factors, such as family breakdown and failing schools. “The society expects the city to do the job of the father, the mother (and) the school district and we are not geared up for that,” he said.

Dunlap’s problems with both her health and her landlord have provided fodder for Scardenzan, who says the challenger would be unable to handle the stress of public office and has no business talking about city finances because she was sued over failing to pay rent.

Dunlap was ill in 1990 and had to be hospitalized, but said she has recovered and is fit to serve on the council. She declined to specify the nature of her illness.

Dunlap said the rent flap was a “justifiable contract dispute” she lost in court, adding that it “has nothing to do with a campaign for City Council.” She also said, “The campaign should be about city issues and about the incumbent’s 12 years of failure.”

If the Dunlap-Scardenzan contest has been a free-for-all, the Tabor-Price race has been a meeting of the minds on every issue, be it economic development, job creation, the city budget or crime. The only thing they disagree on is which one ought to serve on the council for the next four years.

The issue, Price said, is “commitment and the level of being able to mobilize citizens and keeping them mobilized and informed. I contend there needs to be more of that.”

Price contends that under Tabor, voters in the largely upper-middle-class District One have not had a big enough say about what goes on in their immediate area. He pledges to more frequently consult with neighborhood councils.

Like Tabor, Price said he thinks that a more creative approach to budgeting could save the two dozen jobs that are scheduled to be cut under the proposed 1993-94 city budget. He suggested such things as four-day weeks or bigger cuts in the capital improvement budget, rather than layoffs. Tabor has also suggested that furloughs might be the way to stave off projected layoffs.

Tabor, an executive with United Way, agrees that he and Price have no clear differences when it comes to the issues. “From my standpoint,” Tabor said, “one has to ask the question, ‘If you don’t have any disagreements with the incumbent, why are you running?’ ”

“We talk about the need to bring people into the system and how to do that,” Tabor said. “We want to work to economically revitalize the community and the only real difference is that I’ve been doing those things and he’s just started to talk about them.”

To suggestions that the city is worse off now than it was 12 years ago, Tabor compared Inglewood to other cities and said it has fared exceptionally well under the current leadership.

“During the last 12 years, most cities have had to cut back on services. . . . We’ve tried to keep the same level of service and to create new services,” Tabor said.

Twelve years ago, he added, the city did not have a graffiti abatement program, nor did it have a group of police officers on bicycles or a summer youth program that worked as hard as the one today to provide career and development programs for teen-agers.