Environment, Growth Are Issues in Races : Avalon: Two City Council seats will be decided as the panel prepares to make critical decisions on growth and water supplies.

The Avalon City Council, soon to be facing the tiny island community’s most important growth management decisions in years, will gain at least one new member in Tuesday’s municipal election.

Irene Strobel, one of the two council members who were up for reelection, decided not to run. That leaves a lone incumbent and four challengers--Councilman Hal Host, Barbara Doutt, Ralph Morrow Jr., Dennis Reitinger and George Scott--competing for two seats.

Mayor Hugh T. (Bud) Smith also faces reelection Tuesday, but he is running unopposed.

One of the biggest issues to be considered by the new five-member council is a wide-ranging, 15-year redevelopment plan proposed by the Santa Catalina Island Co., which owns 87% of the land in the one-square-mile city.

The mayor and all five council candidates say the plan is a well-considered response to key problems facing Avalon, including limited water supplies, a shortage of low-cost housing and congestion from tourism.

Among other things, the plan provides for construction of a new civic center complex, a desalination plant, three new hotels and 50 new units of housing a year, some of it earmarked for moderate-income occupants.

How the plan should be implemented and financed, however, has yet to be determined in negotiations between the Santa Catalina Island Co. and the city, which is expected to make a final decision on the plan early next year. All of which adds up to a major challenge for the council that emerges from Tuesday’s elections.

“The 15-year plan really will bring fundamental changes to the community,” City Manager Chuck Prince said this week. “It’s this (new) council that will be laying the groundwork for most of those changes.”

The field of council candidates is diverse. Doutt, 42, is a housewife and community volunteer whose husband, Ron, is executive vice president of the Santa Catalina Island Co. Host, who would not give his age, is a retiree who won election to the council in 1986.

Morrow, 52, owns the Catalina Island Department Store and the island’s only cable TV franchise. Reitinger, 47, is a tour bus driver and transportation consultant. Scott, 59, is a newspaper distributor who served on the City Council for 16 years before being voted out of office in 1988.

Observers say this year’s council campaign has been quiet compared to previous city contests. But little media hype and door-knocking is needed to arouse Avalon’s 1,648 registered voters.

“In our town we usually get 60% to 80% voter turnout,” said Shirley Davy, the city’s clerk since 1964. “Our people are very much aware of who’s running.”

Asked to name the most important issues facing Avalon, all five council candidates put low-cost housing at or near the top of their lists. With the market for vacation homes surging, the supply and cost of housing have become a problem both for year-round residents and seasonal workers.

Last month the City Council voted unanimously to spend $500,000 to help finance construction of 80 units of affordable housing on Eucalyptus Hill. The Santa Catalina Island Co.’s 15-year plan provides for additional new low-cost housing in the Bird Park area, Quail Canyon and other scattered sites.

“The general feeling is that we all want affordable housing,” said Reitinger, who also wants Avalon to install a public transportation system to ease traffic.

Scott questioned whether the Island Co. plans will materialize. Pronouncing himself the most committed low-cost housing advocate in the campaign, he said past efforts to develop affordable housing have met resistance from property owners who do not want low-cost units built next to their homes.

“The people who have don’t want another kind of people moving into their neighborhood,” he said. Scott said he would make sure that the council overcomes such objections.

Doutt warned against being in too much of a hurry to build low-cost units: “I’m certainly for affordable housing, but we should make sure it is well-planned and well-thought-out instead of just rushing into things.”

A second issue cited often by council candidates was water. Shortages are a common problem on Catalina, where seawater is used to flush toilets and fight fires.

The problem is especially evident now. Drought has dropped the water level in Santa Catalina Island’s Middle Ranch Reservoir, which has a capacity of 1,143 acre-feet, to 489 acre-feet--the lowest level since 1977.

In response, conservation measures have been imposed that prohibit the use of fresh water for washing streets, sidewalks and patios and limit the watering of lawns and landscaping to early morning and late afternoon.

Southern California Edison, which manages the island’s water supply, plans to build a reverse-osmosis desalination plant by the end of the year to serve a condominium development in Hamilton Cove, to stabilize the island’s existing water supply and to serve some new customers.

Edison is also negotiating with the Santa Catalina Island Co. to build a second desalination plant that would serve the new development provided for in the Island Co.’s 15-year plan.

All candidates said they support the desalination plans, but several expressed doubts about their execution. Morrow warned that unless the city becomes directly involved in planning the projects, the plants may not be built large enough to accommodate future demand.

“We have to make damn sure we have a stable water supply because right now we don’t,” Morrow said. “(Construction) projects that have already been approved are going to impact our water supply like you won’t believe.”

Doutt, meanwhile, said the city should be careful about how it responds to the prospect of increased water supplies, assuming the desalination plants are built.

“I want to see how the water is used so we don’t have gung-ho growth,” she said. “Water (scarcity) has always been something that has contained growth in this town. If you remove that problem, you remove a natural stop on the system.”