Signals of a Right Turn Prove False in Santa Monica : Suburban races: Environmentalist-backed candidates win water board seats in the San Gabriel Valley. West Hollywood rejects card club gambling.

Santa Monica voters Tuesday refused to approve a luxury beach hotel that noted restaurateur Michael McCarty planned to build, and rebuffed an attempt by landlords to dilute the city’s tough rent control law.

The two issues, coupled with a city ballot measure seen as unsympathetic to the homeless, inspired pre-election speculation that the liberal seaside community was about to turn toward the political right.

As it turned out, the speculation was premature. All three measures failed.

Other election highlights in suburban Los Angeles County included:

* In the San Gabriel Valley, five environmentalist-backed candidates scored a clean sweep on three water boards.

* West Hollywood residents resoundingly rejected card club gambling by a vote of 76.6% to 23.4%.

* In Downey, Leo R. Villa, a retired deputy district attorney, lost the election for Municipal Court judge after a campaign that attracted widespread attention when his 34-year-old son, born out of wedlock, publicly opposed him.

In Santa Monica, the voice of the voters was loudest on the subject of development. Nearly complete returns showed that, in addition to rejecting McCarty’s beach hotel, voters approved a ban on new hotels and large restaurants on or near the beach and apparently ousted five-term City Council incumbent Christine Reed. She was depicted during the campaign as a supporter of large commercial development.

Reed clung to a faint hope that an estimated 4,500 absentee ballots would give her enough votes for the third-place finish she would need to return to office. The top vote-getter was community activist Tony Vazquez, who will be the council’s first Latino member.

Santa Monica voters rejected a landlord-sponsored ballot measure that would decontrol rents on apartments that are voluntarily vacated. Landlords responded by warning that evictions may increase because some property owners who are unable to make a profit under stringent rent controls would shut down their buildings.

Also rejected in Santa Monica was a ballot measure to make the city attorney an elected position. Supporters of the measure billed it as a referendum on the city’s lenient policy toward the homeless and on City Atty. Robert M. Myers, whom some blamed for not rousting the homeless out of town.

The San Gabriel Valley electorate, unlike voters statewide who turned down pleas of environmentalists, cast its lot for sweeping change on water boards. They selected five Sierra Club-endorsed candidates in three water districts.

“From now on, every water board seat in the San Gabriel Valley is going to be contested,” said Hacienda Heights environmentalist Wil Baca, who was not a candidate but helped to organize a campaign that focused on the area’s severe ground water pollution problems, which have forced closure of one-fourth of the valley’s wells.

The environmentalists say they will be aggressive as board members of the Upper San Gabriel Valley Municipal Water District, the Three Valleys Municipal Water District and the San Gabriel Valley Municipal Water District.

In Downey, observers could not agree on whether Leo Villa’s opposition from his son contributed to his defeat by trial lawyer David W. Perkins, who had 55% of the vote to Villa’s 45%.

Villa, 62, a part-time court commissioner, was the target of a campaign waged by his son, Richard L. Villa, who said he is angry because his father has seen him only twice and barely acknowledges his existence. He posted more than 400 signs urging a no vote on his father.

Leo Villa could not be reached for comment.

Times staff writers Berkley Hudson, John Mitchell and Vivian Louie contributed to this report.