Vote in Lawndale Creates Odd Crisis in Development : Elections: Hermosa Beach voters settle an issue that has dogged them for some time and oust council incumbents, but office-holders do well in Hawthorne and Rolling Hills Estates.

In the aftermath of Tuesday’s election, a development crisis erupted in Lawndale, where voters rejected ballot measures that would have validated the city’s General Plan. The city attorney promptly suspended the issuance of all building permits and the City Council planned an emergency meeting for Monday to deal with the predicament.

In the Hermosa Beach election, ballot measures also commanded a large share of attention, with the Great Dog Leash Controversy nearly overshadowing the ouster of both incumbents seeking reelection. Incumbents did well in Hawthorne and Rolling Hills Estates.

In Lawndale, the city’s quandary arose from the defeat of ballot measures H, J and G, which were intended to resolve confusion over Ordinance 82, a 1963 measure that requires the city to seek voter approval of its General Plan, which governs all zoning and development in the city. The voters rejected the city’s General Plan and refused to repeal Ordinance 82. In effect, that will require the city to submit a new plan to voters.

Mayor Sarann Kruse said the defeat of the three measures concerning the General Plan “sets the city back an awful lot.”

City Atty. David Aleshire ordered an immediate halt to issuing building permits for an indefinite period. He said state law requires an up-to-date General Plan to be in place before permits are issued.

“I have never come across an issue like this,” Aleshire said. One possibility--gaining state approval of an interim permitting process--”could take months,” he said.

Aleshire predicted that the city would be sued by developers for failing to issue permits already in the city bureaucracy’s pipeline, or, if the city does issue permits, by slow-growth activists who favored defeat of the measures.

“In other words,” Aleshire said, “we get sued by both sides or either side.”

Aleshire said the City Council’s failure to meet a deadline for submitting arguments in favor of the ballot measures may have contributed to the defeat. As a result, the ballot contained arguments opposed to the measures, but none in favor.

The fourth measure, K, which was also defeated, would have allowed the City Council, without a popular vote, to spend federal or other outside funding for public facilities costing more than $1 million.

On the Hermosa Beach greenbelt early Wednesday, disappointed dog owners and grateful joggers early Wednesday mulled the voters’ decision to rein in the last refuge in the city where dogs could legally run without leashes. The decision will take effect Dec. 8.

“Good . . . for me . . . bad . . . for the dogs,” panted runner Gary Ilson of Redondo Beach.

But graphic artist Randall Richmond, who had brought Bernie, his St. Bernard-Labrador mix, for a run, said that when the ordinance takes effect “I guess we’ll have to take him off the leash when no one is looking.”

In the Hermosa Beach council election, the top two vote-getters, City Clerk Kathleen Midstokke and computer software entrepreneur Robert Essertier, attacked incumbent candidates Etta Simpson and June Williams for bad financial planning and for holding meetings that lasted well past midnight. Midstokke and Essertier outpaced their opponents by comfortable margins.

Attorney Albert Wiemans, who had been critical of the council’s downzoning votes, took third place, edging out engineer Robert (Burgie) Benz by 37 votes. Simpson and Williams placed fifth and sixth.

Both measures concerning the use of the city-owned Biltmore Hotel site were defeated, including community activist Parker Herriott’s proposal to turn the site into a park, and a city proposal to rezone it for a mixed commercial, residential and open space use. Herriot, encouraged because his measure lost by fewer than 200 votes, said he plans to circulate a new petition to turn the block between 14th and 15th streets into a grassy park. Midstokke, however, said the city might consider zoning the Biltmore site for residential use, with Coastal Commission approval, and selling it for development.

In Hawthorne, all three incumbents, who dealt with an August financial crisis by raising city fees, were reelected.

Mayor Betty Ainsworth, reelected to her third two-year term as mayor, said she sees the results as “a vote of confidence from the people.”

David M. York, a commercial and industrial property manager and a councilman for 6 1/2 years, said the results vindicated the recent approval of redevelopment projects that he hopes will secure the city’s financial future. With finances less of a pressing matter, York said, he hopes that the council will be able to take more steps against crime--an issue raised by challengers. The other winner is Charles (Chuck) Bookhammer, an insurance broker and also a 6 1/2-year member of the council.

Rolling Hills Estates voters sent a divided message Tuesday, returning gadfly incumbent Jackie McGuire to office but also electing Planning Commissioner Kenneth Servis, one of her critics. Servis was the top vote-getter.

Servis said he hopes that McGuire “will behave responsibly . . . now that she is no longer campaigning.” McGuire, who joined the council earlier this year after Jerome Belsky was recalled, said, “I think it will be challenging” to work with Servis.

Voters in Rolling Hills Estates overwhelmingly said no to Proposition N, which would have created a 5% utility tax over four years to go into a fund to purchase undeveloped land, and Proposition O, which would have enabled the city to use the money by permitting it to exceed spending limits imposed by the Gann initiative.

In the election for two seats on the Palos Verdes Library District Board of Trustees, incumbent Janet Smith won easily, and Teresa Sun edged out Frances M. Bolton.

Contributing to this article were Times staff writers Hugo Martin, Shawn Hubler, Adrianne Goodman and Alisa Samuels.

ELECTION RESULTS: B5