ELECTIONS / HERMOSA BEACH : This Ballot Has Enough Names to Field a Full Baseball Team : Politics: Nine active candidates are battling to fill two City Council seats. Unlike past races, this one has no incumbents to kick around.

Close followers of Hermosa Beach elections ought to be experiencing deja vu as Nov. 5 nears.

Hermosa Beach campaigns are known for attracting flocks of candidates, and this Election Day will be no exception, with nine active candidates vying for two seats on the five-member City Council. And the issues they are raising are the same that have been debated for years in the beach town of 18,200 residents: the fate of the Biltmore Hotel site, the fiscal state of City Hall, the business climate and housing density in the city’s 1.3 square miles.

Despite the similarities with elections past, most of the candidates are new. And voters will not have the opportunity to throw out any incumbents, a Hermosa Beach tradition, because the incumbents whose seats are up for election--Roger Creighton and Charles Sheldon--are stepping down voluntarily.

The two councilmen, however, have not stayed on the sidelines. They sponsored a cable television interview show with the candidates earlier this month. Some of the aspirants boycotted the forum, however, because they viewed them as interference by the lame ducks.

“There are a lot of people campaigning, and the question is, ‘Are they telling you what they think you want to hear?’ ” Creighton said in defense of the show. “That is the quandary in this election.”

What to do with the vacant beachfront Biltmore Hotel site has been before the voters 10 times over the past 25 years without any consensus emerging.

Two initiatives will appear on the Nov. 5 ballot: one that would create a public park on the 0.82-acre site (Proposition G), another that would allow the city to sell the land for 70% residential and 30% commercial development and use the money to purchase open space elsewhere in the community (Proposition H).

Most candidates are supporting the 70-30 plan, which was endorsed by the Coastal Commission in March and would allow the city to use 80% of the estimated $8-million sale price to purchase open space. But there are exceptions.

Candidate Merna K. Marshall supports a compromise plan endorsed by a citizens task force calling for 41% commercial development and 59% open space. John Ryan says the city ought to keep the land and lease it to commercial developers.

Sam Y. Edgerton III says he will vote for the 70-30 plan, but actually believes the land should be all commercial. Gene H. Dreher is leaning toward supporting the public park, although he said neither plan is ideal. And Robert Benz, who favors half commercial and half open space, says if neither ballot measure passes, the city should pave over the lot and make it a parking lot.

Two other ballot propositions have also divided the candidates.

Proposition I would limit the maximum commercial building height to 30 or 35 feet in various areas of the city, lower than the 45-foot limit generally allowed in the city’s business areas.

Proposition J, meanwhile, is a non-binding measure that would direct the council to take measures to reduce the size, or “bulk,” of homes on the city’s residential lots in the city.

Supporting the height limit are John D. (Jack) Andren, Warner P. Lombardi, Roy G. McNally and Edgerton. Supporting the bulk reduction measure are McNally and Lombardi.

Michael D’Amico, Dreher, Benz and Marshall oppose both measures because they said planning issues should not be decided at the ballot box. Ryan said the commercial height limit would further scare away potential businesses, and the bulk measure would infringe on property owners’ rights.

Here are brief snapshots of the candidates:

Andren, 54, is a property manager who says he is an ardent supporter of individual property rights.

“It seems that many of the issues that come before the council deal with property in one way or another,” he said. “My background gives me good insight into land use.”

All the candidates have said they would accelerate development of the city’s downtown, which has a growing number of vacancies and is generally viewed as overloaded with T-shirt shops and bars.

Ryan, 37, who owns a Hermosa Beach interior furnishing company, says the council needs a retail businessman like himself to change the council’s anti-business attitude.

“We don’t need another lawyer or bureaucrat on the council,” he said. “I’ve been in retail business for 10 years. I understand the heart of the businessman. What’s been happening is that a resident comes and complains and the business is always put down.”

Ryan added that at some point during the council meetings he watches on cable television, “I’m standing up yelling at the television set because of the way they abuse business.”

Lombardi, 42, who has owned an engineering consulting firm on Pier Avenue for more than a decade, says attracting more business to the city would boost sales tax revenue and make for a more vibrant, diverse downtown.

“We must let the current and future businesses of the city know where they stand,” he said. “I’d like to hold joint meetings between the Chamber of Commerce, the Planning Department and residents.”

Benz, 34, is an engineer who unsuccessfully ran for the council in 1989. He is known as “Burgie,” the name he used as the satirical host on a local cable television show.

He is pressing to eliminate the city’s 6% utility users tax and cut in half the $20 fine on parking tickets. The city’s aggressive parking enforcement program drives customers out of town, he said, adding that creating a healthy business district would enable the city to relieve taxes on residents.

“My big ax to grind is to have limited government,” Benz said. “Any time you have more government it becomes a drain on everybody.”

Edgerton, 35, a business lawyer and former prosecutor, says his main goal is to maintain Hermosa Beach’s residential character and stop the city from being taken over by condominiums.

“When people talk about the unique qualities of the South Bay it’s that nice feeling of a neighborhood by the ocean,” he said. “I’d like to see single-family neighborhoods protected. . . . I’d like to have a real strong downtown that is providing revenue for the city.”

Edgerton said he has been active in the community through a cable television interview show he hosted and the Hermosa Hills Community Watch group he founded to prevent unpopular zoning changes in his neighborhood.

Dreher, 42, an information systems consultant, has been among the most vociferous critics of the current council.

“The council can’t lead. It can’t manage. There is no organizational management structure. We’re trying to manage like 15th-Century Italian city states and that didn’t work all that well in (the) 15th Century.”

When the City Council put an end this week to plans to replace the city’s police force with county sheriff’s deputies, it took away the issue most often on candidates’ tongues. All the candidates had fashioned themselves as opponents of the proposal. Two of the plan’s leading critics have police experience themselves: McNally, 51, a Hawthorne police sergeant, and D’Amico, 42, an El Camino College criminal justice professor and former Hermosa Beach officer.

McNally said he believes the current council is doing its best. Some of the critics of the council are burning their bridges and would have a difficult time getting along with their colleagues if elected, he said. McNally stresses his family ties to Hermosa Beach, which he said date back to 1904.

D’Amico said his experience as a mediator will help him end the 3 to 2 votes that frequently divide the current council. And his service as a city civil service commissioner, he said, gives him governmental experience that the other candidates lack.

But Marshall, 36, is stressing her 15 years of experience as a secretary to top elected officials in Redondo Beach, Rolling Hills Estates and Hermosa Beach as proof that she could hit the ground running as a councilwoman. “I’ve worked for enough city councils to know the good and bad of city councils,” she said.

Besides the nine active candidates, two others will appear on the ballot: Wil Buchanan, who has withdrawn from the race, and Peter Mangurian, a retired physician who owns Scotty’s Restaurant. Mangurian has avoided candidates’ forums, even one held at his restaurant, and did not returned repeated telephone calls seeking comment.

Candidates for Hermosa Beach City Council Nine residents, none of them incumbents, are competing for two seats on the five-member City Council in Hermosa Beach.

John D. (Jack) Andren

Age: 54

Occupation: Property manager

“It seems that many of the issues that come before the council deal with property in one way or another. My background gives me good insight into land use. Of all the people running, I’m the greatest proponent for individual property rights.”

Robert Benz

Age: 34

Occupation: Engineer

“You can’t draw business to downtown without a reduction of over-regulation and over-taxation of business. When you have a customer that wants to buy something and he comes out and sees a $20 ticket, the first thing he would do is say, ‘I’m going to the mall next time.’ ”

Michael D’Amico

Age: 42

Occupation: College professor

“I think I can work with the current council people. I know what mediation and compromise are all about. I don’t think we can continue to have 3 to 2 votes.”

Gene H. Dreher

Age: 42

Occupation: Information systems consultant

“We’re trying to manage like 15th- Century Italian city states, and that didn’t work all that well in (the) 15th Century.

. . . It’s not something we can cure by hiring a city manager. It has to be a re-evaluation of who we are, what we’re doing, where we’re going and how we’re going to get there.”

Sam Y. Edgerton III

Age: 35

Occupation: Lawyer

“The business climate is wrong. (Business owners) get here, they make an investment and they are told they have to abide by 16 or 25 regulations. The city treats them as a burden more than a benefit. They are really the lifeblood of the community.”

Warner P. Lombardi

Age: 42

Occupation: Engineering consultant

“The current council doesn’t make decisions. I’m a decision maker. There’s a couple of very wishy-washy people up there.”

Merna K. Marshall

Age: 36

Occupation: Homemaker, longtime municipal secretary

“I have a very good understanding of city government. I’ve worked for city government so long I understand the ins and outs. I understand the laws. This is not new to me.”

Roy G. McNally

Age: 51

Occupation: Hawthorne police sergeant

“My grandmother isn’t running for election but she settled in Hermosa in 1904 and I have strong family ties here. . . . I think the mayor and council have tried to do the best they could.”

John Ryan

Age: 37

Occupation: Interior furnishing company owner

“I believe Hermosa Beach is the tarnished gem on the Pacific. Why doesn’t any business want to come to Hermosa Beach? It’s because of the (city’s) hostile anti-business attitude.”

Candidates for Hermosa Treasurer The part-time Hermosa Beach treasurer handles investments for the city with a $15-million annual budget. The job pays $1,250 a month. The term lasts four years.

Gary L. Brutsch

Incumbent

Age: 49

Occupation: Pet products executive, former councilman

“The taxpayer works hard for his money, gives it to the city and expects the city to manage it right. It’s a tremendously serious job.”

Saverio (Sam) Perrotti

Age: 50

Occupation: State supervising real estate appraiser

“I would be a watchdog over the city’s funds. . . . I would be nonpolitical. Politics (in the treasurer’s office) interferes with the job.”

Donna Willoughby-Brown

Age: 47

Occupation: Accounting firm owner

“I can enhance the office because I am a business person and business has to be run more efficiently than government. I am the only person that is actually in accounting.”