Environment, Growth Are Issues in Races : Manhattan Beach: The hot issue in this seaside community is whether the city should be involved in putting utility cables underground.

A lively debate over city involvement in undergrounding utility lines in Manhattan Beach is adding electricity to the race for two City Council seats in Tuesday’s election. Council members run at large in the seaside city of 35,142.

Mayor Connie Sieber, 47, an airline flight attendant, and Councilman Larry Dougharty, 49, an economist, are seeking second terms. They are stressing their experience and what they see as a host of city accomplishments, among them three additional police officers for drug enforcement, the city’s first senior housing project, which got under way just last week, downtown beautification and a five-year financial plan that has increased the city’s reserve.

The two challengers, however, say they believe Manhattan Beach has serious problems that demand new voices on the council.

Dan Stern, a 45-year-old aerospace executive, contends that City Hall is a closed bureaucracy where more attention is paid to what developers want than to the desires of residents. Artist and college student Steven A. Napolitano, who is 24 and an official write-in candidate, said he is running because of what he calls “the indifference the current council shows toward longtime residents.”

The undergrounding controversy, which stems from a pilot assessment district the city proposed five years ago in a beach area bordering on Hermosa Beach, has been simmering for months. Critics call undergrounding a financial threat to property owners who must bear a portion of the costs.

Although the council once rejected forming the pilot district, it approved the proposal last year. The city is sharing the costs of placing power, telephone and cable television lines underground with 187 property owners, who pay an average of $4,500. Work has not been finished.

In a move to defuse controversy over future undergrounding, the council last month by a 3-2 vote passed a policy statement saying the city will not promote undergrounding but will respond to requests of those who want it. No city funds will be used unless two-thirds of the owners support an undergrounding district.

But undergrounding refuses to die as an election issue, with Dougharty--an early advocate of undergrounding--taking the brunt of the criticism. He dismisses it as juicy political fodder but nonetheless concedes he’s being hurt.

“People say I want to underground the whole city. It’s not the case. I want to set up a mechanism for people to help themselves,” said Dougharty, who voted for the policy last month. He was on the 1984 ad-hoc city committee that advocated undergrounding in the beach area.

Sieber, who opposed the pilot district and who voted against the policy last month, wants undergrounding put to a public vote. “When you have an issue of that magnitude, you want to be clear what the community wants,” she said, adding that she is concerned about those who can’t afford undergrounding.

Stern also says undergrounding should be on the ballot. “Price is the key issue,” he said, charging that the “council is cramming undergrounding down everybody’s throats.”

Napolitano said the city should remove itself completely from undergrounding activities. “I want to see no city funds. Those who want undergrounding can form an assessment district,” he said.

Reflecting community concern about so-called “monster houses” in rustic city neighborhoods, Stern and Napolitano charge that the council is permitting overdevelopment to infringe on views and open space.

Napolitano, a lifelong Manhattan Beach resident, said houses that stretch “from one end of the lot to the other” without yards are creating a faceless community. He advocates restricting house sizes to 65% of the lot size in low-density areas, as opposed to the current limit of 75%.

“People are concerned about three-story blocks going up and no open space,” Stern said.

For their part, Sieber and Dougharty say the current zoning ordinance revision project, which was the subject of several public hearings and council sessions, will attack the problems.

Sieber believes the project, commonly called ZORP, will reduce the bulk of homes, responding to “objections to houses being built to the maximum of lots.”

Dougharty said building sizes will be reduced and noted what he considers another important component of the revised code: neighborhood preservation districts that will permit specific areas to impose their own restrictions.

Napolitano, who acknowledges that he has to work harder because his name is not on the ballot, said he is a member of the generation that will “inherit the city” and doesn’t want to live with the council’s errors. Napolitano said he will spend less than $1,500 on his campaign.

Calling city government “too closed, too private,” Stern said he wants the Police Department to make the misconduct complaint process more responsive by having a citizens committee review complaints and make the results of investigations public. He said his spending will be limited to the $165 cost of the ballot statement.

Sieber and Dougharty say they want to continue contributing to what they see as city progress.

“I am enjoying being on the council 99% of the time,” Sieber said. “I’ve got quite a bit of time available. I only work two days a week.” Said Dougharty, “I have experience, I know what’s going on up there.”

Both incumbents plan to overwhelm their opponents where spending is concerned. Sieber said her campaign will cost $7,000 and Dougharty said he will spend between $4,000 and $5,000.