Inglewood City Council

The Inglewood City Council tonight will consider asking an independent investigator to review a spate of officer-involved shootings that has resulted in three deaths in the last three months. The council will decide whether to engage the services of the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department's Office of Independent Review to analyze the Police Department shootings, officials said. The announcement comes on the heels of state and federal officials calling for separate investigations.

In a move that could discourage Wal-Mart from opening a superstore, the City Council voted 4-0 to approve an ordinance requiring extra scrutiny of proposals to build giant retail outlets. The measure does not name Wal-Mart specifically, but it takes aim at the kinds of retail operations that fit its superstore profile -- outlets that are more than 100,000 square feet, with more than 10% of the area devoted to grocery products.

An Inglewood city councilwoman said Friday she will ask for a special session of the council to discuss the city's handling of an investigation into an alleged sexual assault of a young woman by a uniformed patrol officer. Councilwoman Judy Dunlap said she was troubled that she and other city officials learned about the incident only when The Times reported Thursday that the FBI and Inglewood police had launched investigations into the alleged assault at a hotel on Century Boulevard.

In most local elections, the hottest contests are almost always the races for City Council or school board, the high-visibility, policy-setting offices that sometimes even serve as springboards into state or federal posts. But in Inglewood, where voters will choose a half-dozen office-holders on Tuesday, it is the intense battle for the important but politically unglamorous job of city clerk that is generating most of the attention.

Here is a guide to the players in the other contested races on Tuesday's ballot. Council members are elected by district, while school board members run for specific offices but are elected districtwide. * Council District 3: Councilman Jose Fernandez decided not to seek another term, setting up a two-way contest between attorney Trini Jimenez, president of the Lennox School Board -- endorsed by Mayor Roosevelt Dorn -- and Eloy Morales Jr.

A group of Inglewood City Council candidates hunkered down for hours Wednesday with their entourages, election officials and a pair of police officers for a hand recount in two controversial races that did not change the outcome of either contest. Eloy Morales Jr., a field deputy to Assemblyman Jerome Horton (D-Inglewood), won the District 3 race by 41 votes over Lennox School Board President Trini Jimenez.

Setting the stage for a new election to fill a City Council seat in Inglewood, a Los Angeles Superior Court judge tentatively ruled Friday that one of the two contestants in the June 3 runoff was not a legal resident of the council district. Judge Robert L. Hess said community activist Mike Stevens was not eligible to run for the District 4 seat when he narrowly edged Councilwoman Lorraine M. Johnson in the April 1 primary, denying her a slot on the runoff ballot.

The Inglewood City Council will hold a new election in the 4th Council District on Sept. 16, but has refused to let former Councilwoman Lorraine M. Johnson have the seat back in the interim. A Los Angeles Superior Court judge earlier this month ordered the new election -- which will be the fifth balloting for the seat since November -- after ruling that a run-off candidate did not qualify because he did not live in the district.

Labor leader Ralph L. Franklin on Tuesday defeated former Councilwoman Lorraine M. Johnson for the District 4 seat on the Inglewood City Council, regaining a post he had held for a month before a judge in July ordered a new election. Election night returns put the tally at 961 votes, or 77%, for Franklin and 283, or 23%, for Johnson. "Our taxpayer voters have spoken. It's settled once and for all," Franklin said. "I'm truly blessed and excited to be taking on this responsibility again."

In election returns Tuesday, a judge renowned for keeping order in the court appeared to win the race for mayor of Inglewood, where City Hall observers are hoping he can keep order among the fractious council members. Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Roosevelt F. Dorn, 61, was one of four candidates seeking to finish the term of former Mayor Ed Vincent, who was elected to the Assembly in November. The mayoral term will end in November 1998.