5 Candidates File for Calabasas Council Race : Elections: Three incumbents will be challenged by a local businessman and a real estate attorney.

After less than a year on the job, three Calabasas City Council members will face two challengers--one of them married to a Soka University supporter--in the city’s first municipal election since incorporation.

Council members Karyn Foley, Lesley Devine and Marvin Lopata were elected last March to serve for two years, but because state law requires city elections to take place in even-numbered years, they were forced to cut their terms short.

In interviews Thursday, the five candidates generally agreed on the need to protect the rural atmosphere of the city.

High on their list of concerns is the proposed expansion of Soka University to accommodate 4,400 students. Last year, the City Council passed a resolution opposing any growth of the school, which sits just outside city limits on land coveted by the National Park Service for a headquarters and visitors center.

One candidate, businessman Keith Ward, is married to the spokeswoman for a citizens group called Friends of Soka University, prompting others in the race to question Ward’s ties to the school.

“I would find it a major conflict if my wife was a supporter of Soka,” Lopata said.

Ward, 48, responded by saying he and his wife, Elizabeth, do not agree on what should be done with the land. “I’d rather have a park,” he said. But “she is an independent person who makes up her own mind. Although she differs from me on some items . . . this is life, man.”

Soka spokesman Jeff Ourvan said the university is not involved in Ward’s campaign. “It is a policy of the university not to become involved in any election,” he said.

Also running is real estate attorney Barry Sullivan, 33, who moved to Calabasas last August from Manhattan Beach.

In adjacent Hidden Hills, incumbents H. Brian Herdeg and Kathleen Bartizal are running unopposed. Both were elected in 1984, and said they want to prevent the gated city from becoming overrun by huge houses that do not fit in with the traditional equestrian character.

Candidates in other cities, including Santa Clarita, San Fernando, Palmdale and Lancaster, have until Tuesday to file candidacy papers for the April 14 elections.