Council Races Attract Many Candidates

Concerns over growth drew the largest number of candidate filings for municipal office in Palmdale in at least a decade Thursday. Opposition to a proposed dump in Elsmere Canyon appeared destined to be a major campaign issue in Santa Clarita’s City Council election April 10, its first since incorporation.

In the gated community of Hidden Hills, a proposal to build low-cost housing for senior citizens is being opposed by at least three of seven people who filed for candidacy on Thursday, the deadline to file papers to run in municipal elections April 10.

In the city of San Fernando, few divisive issues emerged from campaign statements before Thursday’s filing deadline, although the newly elected City Council this spring is expected to hire a new city administrator to oversee day-to-day operations.

* PALMDALE: The continuing rush of development in Palmdale brought out 14 candidates, the most in at least a decade. Palmdale voters will elect a mayor and two of the city’s four City Council members in April.

Three incumbents filed for reelection, along with 11 challengers, including several well-known homeowner group leaders. But the ballot will not be final until the city clerk’s office next week verifies that each submitted the required petition signatures of at least 20 registered voters.

Mayor Pete Knight, an ex-Air Force test pilot, is seeking a new two-year term. Voters also will decide a ballot measure that would extend the mayor’s term to four years.

The two mayoral challengers will be Kamal Chalabi, a civil engineering professor at Cal State Long Beach who complains development in the city “is completely out of hand,” and Brian Spencer, an aerospace engineer who was on the U.S. Olympic field hockey team in 1984.

Nine candidates challenged first-term Councilmen Daniel Becker and Thomas Smith. They included James Ledford, a city planning commissioner; Patty Alfred, head of the Joshua Hills Homeowners Assn.; James Root, a board member of the Palmdale Community Assn.; and Celeste Eckley, president of the Inco Neighborhood Assn.

Also running are production planner Neal Emelio, conservator Durwood Bland Jr., Suzy Love, Geoffrey Mika and Chris Nejako.

* SANTA CLARITA: Eight challengers and three incumbents declared their candidacies in the city’s first City Council election since incorporation two years ago.

Six candidates filed campaign statements saying they either opposed landfills in general or the Elsmere Canyon proposal in particular.

Officially, the Santa Clarita City Council has remained neutral on plans by the city and county of Los Angeles to open a dump in Elsmere Canyon, just outside the Santa Clarita city limits, by 1995. Council members have said they could jeopardize Santa Clarita’s legal standing to fight the dump if they officially denounced the plan before reviewing the project’s environmental impact report, which is expected this spring.

In their campaign statements, Councilman Carl Boyer III, 52, and Councilman Dennis Koontz, 50, said they do not want landfills in the Santa Clarita Valley. Mayor Jo Anne Darcy, 58, a field deputy to Supervisor Mike Antonovich, said she opposed landfills that are environmentally unsound.

Also attacking the proposed dump were Kenneth Dean, 50, an interior designer who unsuccessfully ran for the council two years ago; Jill Klajic, 42, a businesswoman and community advocate; and Andrew (Andy) Martin, 65, a rancher and office manager.

Other candidates in Santa Clarita are Linda J. Calvert, 45, an educator and realty agent; Wayne Carter, 62, a retired heating fitter; Vera Johnson, 63, a retired educator and longtime community activist; John Buckner Smith, 43, a college student seeking his teaching credential; and Herbert H. Wolfe, 75, a retired Air Force investigator.

* HIDDEN HILLS: Candidates who filed for the City Council election included three incumbents and three critics of a plan to annex land and build low-cost senior housing in the affluent rural community.

The incumbents--Mayor Chris K. Van Peski, Councilwoman Colleen Hartman and Councilman Warren H. McCament--last month voted to annex 25 acres on the southern border of the western San Fernando Valley community to build 46 units of lower-cost senior housing.

Three opponents of the plan--Howard Klein, Susan Porcaro and David Stanley--also filed papers to run April 10.

Harvey Cohen, a Hidden Hills planning commissioner, also filed.

* SAN FERNANDO: Two incumbents and four challengers filed papers to run for three seats at stake in the April 10 City Council election. Because a third incumbent, Evelio Franco, chose not to run, the filing deadline for other candidates has been extended until Feb. 6, said Wilma Miller, assistant city clerk.

Mayor Daniel Acuna, a real estate consultant who is completing his first four-year term on the council, filed for reelection. The other incumbent candidate is Councilman Doude Wysbeek. Wysbeek, who served on the council from 1982 to 1986 but lost a reelection bid and then was appointed to the council last May to replace a member who resigned.

Challenging the incumbents will be Jose Hernandez, a planning commissioner and urban studies professor at Cal State Northridge; Linda Jauron, a businesswoman and volunteer at the San Fernando YWCA; Gabe Rodriguez, a retired manufacturing plant supervisor and long-time San Fernando resident; and Mary Jane Tuomy, a planning commissioner who previously served as a parks and recreation commissioner.

Times staff writers Phillip Sneiderman and John Chandler also contributed to this story.