Campaigns Take Direct Approach : Politics: With bans on neighborhood advertising, Hidden Hills council candidates use public meetings to debate election issues.

Lawn signs and campaign flyers are largely banned by the restrictive covenants agreed to by Hidden Hills homeowners, so the politicking in the city’s April 10 election is not outwardly visible.

But inside the city’s administration building, the candidates have regularly traded barbs at City Council meetings over the past six months.

While many other cities rigidly control the amount of time citizens may speak, Hidden Hills frequently allows its residents to interrupt council members and speak as long or as often as they wish.

In the “town hall-style” meetings, politics has been brought directly to the five-member council’s doorstep in dialogues that have focused on the main issue facing the city: a proposed 48-unit lower-cost apartment building for senior citizens.

Among the combatants have been Mayor Chris K. Van Peski, Councilwoman Colleen M. Hartman and Councilman Warren H. McCament, who are seeking reelection in the at-large contest. They have tried to parry the verbal jabs of the opposition candidates, residents Howard Klein, Susan Norris Porcaro and David G. Stanley.

* Van Peski, 54, vice president of a Woodland Hills electrical engineering firm, was appointed to a council vacancy in 1986, when no other candidates sought the seat in the election. He has supported the lower-cost housing plan as a way to settle a lawsuit against the city and comply with state housing law while minimizing the effect on the city.

* McCament, 69, a San Fernando-based criminal-defense and family law attorney, also was appointed in 1986 under the same circumstances as Van Peski. He said he is counting on a “silent majority” to vindicate the incumbents. McCament said the housing proposal is important because it is closely linked to the city’s use of redevelopment to build a drainage project that could save the city from massive civil liability in the event of a flood.

* Hartman, a nurse, served 16 years on the council until she declined to run in 1986. But a year later, she was appointed to fulfill the term of a councilwoman who moved out of town. Hartman said she does not think the lower-cost senior housing outside the community’s gates would significantly affect the city’s rural, equestrian character. She said she also believes the need for the drainage project cannot be overemphasized.

* Klein, 47, owns a Vernon-based firm that makes sportswear for women and children. He has consistently opposed the council’s steps favoring the lower-cost housing but said his candidacy has “nothing to do with affordable housing.” He said he would not defy a Los Angeles Superior Court judge who recently said a court settlement requires the city to approve the housing. But Klein said the settlement itself is “illegal” and “can be fought in court.”

* Stanley, 38, is an attorney and an executive vice president of Lorimar Television in Culver City. He said he is against including any multifamily housing or additional commercial development in the city. Like Klein, Stanley said that the council’s support for the lower-cost housing caught him by surprise and that the city has not adequately researched alternative policies. He often has couched his persistent criticism of the council by saying he has not been well enough informed to understand the issues fully.

* Porcaro, 35, is a homemaker and former broadcast journalist. Porcaro said she also does not want multifamily housing or additional commercial development in Hidden Hills. She said the city is on “a misguided course” and should not use a redevelopment agency to fund the drainage project.