Sparse Voter Turnout in Westside for Muncipal Election

Voters on the Westside barely trickled to the polls Tuesday.

The choices in Brentwood were limited to mostly drafted to contain the city's massive budget deficit, but they drew limited citizen response.

The measures included an effort to tax oil companies for extracting oil within the city limits, and , which would earmark more money for city libraries.

Other parts of the city had more contested ballots—City Council seats and spots on the board of the Los Angeles Unified School District.

The 10 propositions weren't interesting enough to attract many voters to the polling place in the virtually-empty community room of the when Brentwood Patch stopped by at 2 p.m.

Poll workers [see photo], who asked not to be identified, were disappointed.

"We know there are no people running for office here, but it's still important to vote," said one election official.

"We're not even getting very many people showing up with absentee ballots," she added.

At around noon at St Bede’s Episcopal Church in Mar Vista, only three people were filing their ballots. The church hall is the official polling place for two separate districts, but neither had received a high voter turnout.
 
In Venice, only 10 people had voted at the Hotel Erwin by noon and turnout wasn't much better at the Electric Lodge polling station where only 28 people had voted by 12:50 p.m.

At the Westchester Masonic Church on Manchester Boulevard in Playa del Rey, five volunteers waited for voters Tuesday afternoon.

"It's not good," said Donna, a polling place volunteer.

Poll workers at various sites said they hoped more voters would show up after they got off work.

Patch editors Paul Chavez, Kelly Hartog and Samantha Page contributed to this report.