ELECTIONS / CULVER CITY : Voters Give a Split Decision on Development : Growth: Strict height-limit initiative is passed, but the candidate who supported it is defeated in favor of two pro-development contenders.

In a curious ending to a curious campaign, voters in Culver City elected two pro-development candidates to the City Council on Tuesday, but approved a stringent height-limit initiative that the winners had opposed.

Although the 56-foot height limit contained in the residents’ initiative known as Measure I beat a more lenient competing proposal backed by development interests, the council candidate who backed Measure I, Tom Hammons, lost to incumbent Jozelle Smith and Mike Balkman, who supported the milder controls outlined in Measure II. Both measures received a majority of “yes” votes, but Measure I is the only one adopted because it received more “yes” votes.

The split decision has the town abuzz with Monday-morning quarterbacking. It startled almost everyone, particularly the candidates. It also clouded the fate of the controversial $159-million Marina Place regional shopping mall planned for Culver City’s western tip.

“In the Oscars, why supposedly are the best director and the best movie always the same?” Smith said. “In this case, they weren’t.” Remarked Hammons: “I’m very puzzled.”

Hammons, a district manager for Thrifty Drug Stores, had billed himself as a slow-growth and grass-roots candidate. He heartily endorsed Measure I, calling it “the people’s choice.” The initiative qualified for the ballot after 3,600 residents signed petitions.

Measure I imposes a cap of 56 feet, or about four stories, on buildings in the city’s busiest commercial zones. Criticizing that as inflexible, the City Council majority of Smith, Richard Alexander and Paul Jacobs placed the rival measure to the ballot. Without specifying a height limit, Measure II called for lot-coverage limits on most commercial buildings in the city and prohibited them from blocking views, disrupting air flow or causing “significant detriment” by their shade, shadow or glare.

There was one other key difference between them. Whereas Measure I theoretically applies to any project not yet under construction, Measure II would have exempted any project that had received city approval, regardless of whether construction had started--and would therefore exempt Marina Place.

The 1-million-square-foot Marina Place project approved by the City Council last month would place Nordstrom and Bullock’s stores, 150 smaller shops and a six-screen movie theater at Culver City’s western edge, on a site nearly surrounded by Los Angeles.

As approved by the council, the mall contains several elements that will have to be scaled back if the terms of Measure I are applied. The theater complex is envisioned as being 74 feet high, and there are two proposed 84-foot decorative towers.

City Atty. Eleanor Egan said in an interview, however, that she believes Marina Place will be able to get in under the wire.

A comprehensive agreement between the city and the developers approved by the council last month is scheduled to be signed April 25, at the end of a required 30-day period to allow the filing of any referendum petitions seeking to contest the agreement.

Although the council has the option of amending the development agreement, according to Egan, the election of Balkman and Smith makes that unlikely. With Councilman Paul Jacobs, they make up a council majority in favor of the project as now proposed.

“I wouldn’t change (the development agreement),” Balkman said, adding that he thought the project had “gone through enough.”

If the agreement is signed on schedule, Egan said, it will shield Marina Place from Measure I, which is not scheduled to take effect until April 27, 10 days after next Tuesday’s City Council meeting in which the new council is expected to certify the election results.

Marianne Lowenthal, general manager for Marina Place developer Prudential Property Co., said she believed the development agreement “would stand up as it is” despite the adoption of Measure I.

But Richard Pachtman, a former mayor and a sponsor of Measure I, said it is not that simple.

“It would seem to me,” he said, “that any councilman that would act in such a way in the face of a measure adopted by the people would face a recall.”

Pachtman and another sponsor of the initiative, Robin Turner, said Wednesday that they were considering several challenges to Marina Place, including collecting signatures to force a referendum on the development agreement.

They also questioned the legality of the council’s rush to approve the development agreement before the election. “It was a deliberate attempt to subvert the will of the people,” Pachtman contended.

Even if the mall encounters no additional obstacles in Culver City, its future is by no means assured. The city of Los Angeles, the Venice Town Council and the California Coastal Commission all are threatening legal challenges, based on the traffic congestion and pollution the mall is expected to generate.

Los Angeles Councilwoman Ruth Galanter, a vocal opponent of Marina Place, called on the new Culver City council to “reconsider its precipitous action on Marina Place.”

The election parties Tuesday night reflected the candidates’ characters and philosophies. Hammons and Measure I advocates converged at the home of initiative sponsor Turner. Smith returned to Veterans Auditorium, the site of her 1986 election celebration. Balkman, the president of an electrical contracting company and the Culver City Lions Club, partied in a ballroom at the Ramada Hotel in Fox Hills.

Even though they had campaigned against it, Balkman and Smith said that they would not tamper with Measure I. Balkman predicted that the height limit would be a “definite obstacle” to developers, but said, “If that’s what the voters want, that’s what we do. . . . Rules are rules, laws are laws.”

Smith said that Measure I’s label of “ ‘people’s initiative’ appealed to a lot of people who didn’t take the time to read it thoroughly (and) were not that aware of the differences between the two (measures).”

“But . . . we can live with that,” she said. “I don’t think the height limit will be a shock to any developers,” she said, considering the development restrictions that exist in many other area communities.

There was some last-minute hassle Election Day, as voters were given flyers from the city clerk’s office instructing them to ignore their sample ballots and go strictly by the ballots in the voting machines. Over the weekend it was discovered that the sample ballots were printed incorrectly, with wrong numbers assigned to the measures, City Clerk Pauline Dolce said. The error meant that voters intending to vote yes on either ballot measure would in fact be voting the opposite of what they intended if they followed the sample ballot. But Dolce said there was “no way” the ballots for the 51 machines could have been reprinted in time for the election.

The ballot mistake was just one of a series of surprises before the election. Two weeks before the voting complaints arose of outside influence in the council race, when a carpenters union local based in Los Angeles mailed a letter endorsing Smith and Balkman because of their support for Marina Place. Both candidates decried the letter as unwanted interference in the election.

Shortly afterward, Measure II advocates used names from the Measure I petitions to target a campaign mailer. The petitions were unlawfully released by City Clerk Dolce. The Measure II campaigners also failed to report they had contributions and spending of more than $1,000, in apparent violation of state campaign laws.

Measure I sponsor Pachtman has filed a complaint with the state’s Fair Political Practices Commission and has asked the district attorney’s office to investigate.

CULVER CITY 17 of 17 Precincts

CITY COUNCIL Two vacancies

Candidate: Vote Jozelle Smith* 2,851 Mike Balkman 2,647 Tom Hammons 2,269

* incumbent

BALLOT MEASURES

(More than 50% needed for one to pass. Measure 1 is adopted because it received more “Yes” votes than Measure 2.)

1--Shall a measure limiting to 56 feet the height of some buildings in the C-3 (commercial), C-3A (mid-rise commercial), S-1 (studio) and P-D (planned district) zones be adopted?

Preference Vote % Yes 2,544 61 No 1,608 39

2--Shall a measure establishing phasing, traffic, height, site coverage, glare, air flow, shade, shadow, view and vista standards for all non-residential developments in all zones be adopted?

Preference Vote % Yes 2,132 53 No 1,885 47