LOCAL ELECTIONS / DANA POINT COUNCIL : 2 Incumbents Enjoy Substantial Leads : Judy Curreri, Bill Bamattre winning. Voters give overwhelming support to term limits and to a measure that requires citywide vote on offshore drilling.

Two City Council members appeared headed for reelection Tuesday despite a spirited challenge by three candidates who had turned the election into a referendum on the council’s plans for development in this coastal city.

Residents also gave overwhelming support to a measure that imposes term limits on council members and to another that requires a citywide vote before permission is given for offshore drilling.

In the race for two council seats, the defining issue was the General Plan, which paves the way for building tourist resorts and other developments in key areas of the city. The two incumbents seeking reelection--Judy Curreri and Bill Bamattre--supported the plan, while the challengers opposed it on grounds it neglected to provide adequate parking and housing for future resort employees.

Early election returns show Curreri and Bamattre leading their challengers by a significant margin.

Measure U, which limits council members to two consecutive four-year terms in office, was leading by an 8-to-1 margin. There are now no limits. Seven other cities in the county have similar laws.

There was a similar margin of support for Measure V, which stipulates a citywide vote of approval before any support facilities for offshore oil drilling are installed within the city limits. The initiative is patterned after a law in Laguna Beach.

All five council candidates supported the two measures, but agreement ended there.

The challengers campaigned for dramatic change on the council to halt the city’s controversial General Plan. The challengers were John D. Bowler, Ernie Nelson and William L. Ossenmacher. A sixth candidate, Christopher L. Booker, was on the ballot but withdrew from the race, throwing his support behind the other anti-Establishment candidates.

Jack Roberts, a local realtor who is backing the challengers, summed up the race this way: “If you want Dana Point to be a tourist-oriented destination resort, then vote for Curreri and Bamattre. If you want a small beach-town atmosphere, then vote for (the challengers). But once it’s over, it’s over. The people will have spoken.”

Bamattre said late Tuesday night that the incumbents’ lead “seems to be a vote of confidence in Judy and myself but we do not think it’s a mandate on one single issue like the General Plan as our opponents tried to frame it.”

The acrimony can be traced to the council’s General Plan for the six-square-mile city that called for rebuilding the crowded, apartment-filled Lantern Village, redesigning the downtown couplet area into a business center and modernizing the sleepy Doheny Village in Capistrano Beach.

But the perceived threat by the city to use eminent domain for redevelopment angered a significant portion of the city’s 32,000 residents. They challengers argued that Dana Point was losing its “small-town atmosphere” to line the pockets of special business interests and the local tourist industry.

Immediately after the council unanimously approved the city’s first General Plan last July, the critics demanded that it be the subject of a citywide referendum. When the council refused to allow a vote despite 2,300 signatures on a petition and a court order last January, the challengers launched their drive to unseat the council.