Vehicle Limit, Housing on Avalon Ballot

For the first time in Avalon’s 75-year history, residents will elect a mayor directly next Tuesday.

They also will choose two council members and vote on two ballot measures that address major issues on Santa Catalina Island: housing and vehicle control.

In 1986, Avalon residents voted to break with the tradition of having the five City Council members choose the mayor from among themselves. Two incumbent council members are seeking the two-year office.

Observers say the race for mayor in Avalon, a city of more than 2,400 year-round residents who traditionally have elected longtime islanders to office, is expected to be a close contest between incumbent Councilmen Harlow (Hal) Host and Hugh T. (Bud) Smith, both veteran Avalon politicians.

Other Offices at Stake

The city’s 1,552 registered voters also will choose from among four candidates to fill two council seats and will elect a city treasurer from two candidates. The council seats and the treasurer’s post carry four-year terms.

One ballot measure would allow the council, acting as the Avalon Community Improvement Agency, to build moderate-cost housing. The other is an advisory measure on whether the council should continue to regulate and limit the number of cars in Avalon and place new restrictions on the number of motorcycles, mopeds and golf carts.

Both measures have become issues in the mayoral and council campaigns.

The housing measure, called Proposition F, was placed on the ballot at the request of council members after a discussion of the housing shortage on the island.

In support of the measure, residents formed the Affordable Housing for Avalon Committee, and, in a letter presented to the City Council, committee Chairman Angelo Kedis said that the proposition is aimed at easing “a drought of basic shelter--affordable year-round and seasonal housing” in the small tourism-oriented city.

The committee wants to give housing priority to families, year-round public service workers and seasonal tourist workers, Kedis said.

The improvement agency, approved by the voters in 1984, is a redevelopment agency that gets tax money from the increased property values in areas it improves. The agency currently is authorized to spend money for existing streets, sidewalks and alleys, storm drains, the island’s water and sewage system and to repair and replace existing public restrooms.

If passed, Proposition F would allow the agency to spend funds for moderate-cost housing.

The vehicle control measure, which is merely advisory, would give council members an indication of residents’ views of the present ordinance, which imposes a limit of 800 cars on the island, excluding commercial vehicles. Car length was limited to 180 inches, and a Vehicle Review Board was established to decide when to grant exceptions.

The advisory measure asks whether voters favor restrictions on the number of motorcycles, mopeds and golf carts in addition to the existing restrictions on cars. Since August, the city has not allowed more golf carts to be brought to the island.

Here is a look at the candidates and their views:

Harlow (Hal) Host, 68, is a retired insurance company regional manager who has lived in Avalon since 1964 and once owned the Busy Bee restaurant. He is a former chairman of both the Planning Commission and the community improvement agency.

Host said he objects to both measures on the ballot as they are presently worded.

On the vehicle control issue, Host said he is “in favor of keeping the regulation of vehicles as it is now,” and added that the question as worded on the ballot may lead some to vote in favor of controlling some vehicles and not other. The ballot allows for separate votes on control of each of the four types of vehicles.

On the housing issue, Host said he favors more family housing but said Proposition F “has not been properly explained” on the ballot.

“Yes, we need family housing, but the question of who’s going to pay for the housing has not been answered, nor has the question of where the housing is being located,” Host said.

If Host is elected mayor, a special election will be held to fill the remaining two years of his council term.

Hugh T. (Bud) Smith, 62, is a retired airline pilot who was born on the island. Smith served two consecutive four-year terms on the council, from 1974 to 1982. He did not run in 1982, but ran successfully again in 1984.

Smith said he favors the vehicle advisory measure.

“The ordinance now in place is not working because the majority of the City Council since its inception has not enforced it,” Smith said in a campaign statement. The ordinance “needs more teeth,” he said, because decisions made by the Vehicle Review Board are often overturned by the council.

Smith also favors Proposition F, but added that he does not “believe in subsidized housing, housing projects, or the city building and managing a housing project.”

Instead, he said, “what the city can do is take redevelopment money, purchase the property, put in the infrastructure, lights, sewers, sidewalks and gutters. Then the business community would come in and, as needed, develop their own structures.”

Smith’s present term ends this month, so if he is not elected mayor he will be off the council.

The four candidates for two open council seats are:

W. F. (Oley) Olsen, 36, has lived full-time on the island the longest, 23 years. He manages the Pavilion Lodge and the Hotel Atwater. Currently on the Planning Commission, he served on the council from 1982 to 1986 but lost a reelection bid.

Olsen said he favors the advisory vehicle control measure.

“I’m in favor of vehicle control, but not necessarily in favor of the present ordinance,” he said. Part of the problem with the present ordinance is its focus on parking enforcement, which Olsen called haphazard because Avalon’s lone parking enforcement officer is overburdened and parking restrictions are not clearly marked on street signs.

Olsen said that he will vote yes on Proposition F because “it’s something the city needs and the community needs to help solve some of the housing problems. We have to get all the resources we can get.”

John T. Phillips, 41, is vice president and general manager of the National Bank of Catalina. An Avalon resident since 1986, Phillips said that being a relative newcomer to the close-knit island community could work to his advantage.

“A lot of residents said they’d like to try some new blood,” he said.

On the vehicle-control issue, Phillips said he would prefer more parking restrictions rather than further limitations on the number of vehicles.

Phillips said he favors Proposition F and said businesses should work with the city to “ease the problem for full-time residents to find full-time housing.”

Paul R. Puma, 61, a financial and real estate consultant, spent summers on the island from 1947 until 1977, when he became a full-time resident. He is chairman of the city’s Vehicle Review Board.

The city has granted about 170 exemptions to the present vehicle restriction law, Puma said.

Puma said he is in favor of the vehicle advisory measure because, as board chairman, he has seen how difficult enforcement of the vehicle restriction ordinance has been for board members. Because of the island’s small population, board members tend to know applicants and are reluctant to deny their applications for car permits, he said.

“Citizens on the committee have a difficult time deciding what is reasonable,” Puma said.

Puma said he is in favor of Proposition F because of Avalon’s need for “low-cost housing for service personnel.” He added that the city “is going to have to get involved, not necessarily to build it but to encourage the private sector to build it.”

George Scott, 57, owner of a newspaper distributorship and a 21-year Avalon resident, has served on the council since 1972. Scott said he is “100%” in favor of the housing initiative. “All summer there’s ‘Help Wanted’ signs all over, but there’s no place to stay,” Scott said.

Scott said he is in favor of the advisory measure because the present vehicle ordinance “penalizes those who need a car and can’t get one.”

“I’m against the ordinance they have now and have been from the start,” he said. However, Scott said he favored regulating parking rather than the number of vehicles. “If you regulate the parking, you regulate the automobiles,” he said.

On the housing issue, Scott has lobbied in favor of Proposition F, arguing that “housing cost and scarcity is undermining (the island’s) economy.” He added that it is important that voters realize the initiative will not increase taxes for island residents.

Councilman Gilbert Saldana, who has accepted a job with U.S. Sen. Alan Cranston (D-Calif.), did not run for reelection.

In the race for treasurer, two candidates are running for the office being vacated by Rachelle Sampson:

Sherry Edwards has been a resident of Avalon for 24 years. She works for the visitors center of the Santa Catalina Island Co., which operates tourist attractions.

Edwards previously worked for the Los Angeles County sheriff’s department and was also a part-time employee at a Los Angeles accounting firm.

Harry Stiritz, 51, is an accountant with the Alan Kent Smith accounting firm in Avalon and served previously as the city’s treasurer for 12 years.

Stiritz said he would bring a familiarity with the city’s budget procedures to the office, but that since his last tenure in office ended in 1980, Avalon’s “budget and responsibilities have grown. Avalon is becoming a much more important civic and financial center.”

City Clerk Shirley Davy, who has served continuously since 1964, is running unopposed.

Traditionally, election turnout in Avalon is high, averaging better than 70%, according to Davy, although turnout in the 1986 race was 58%.