All-Female City Council to Take Office in Pacifica : Politics: All 17 men on the ballot were defeated. The women believe their victory was just a coincidence.

When the new City Council is sworn in here next Monday, this small coastal town will appear to be on the cutting edge of national politics.

In this, the Year of the Woman, Pacifica will be governed by what is apparently the first all-female city council in California, and the first in the nation in more than a century.

But to the five women who are making history, it is not a political statement. It is just a coincidence.

“I earnestly feel with all my heart and soul that it’s not a woman’s issue in Pacifica,” said Barbara Carr, a real estate agent who was one of four women voted onto the council earlier this month. “And by the way, I love men.”

Pacifica has a tradition of electing women, dating back to the town’s first mayor in 1957. Since that time, there have always been women on the City Council and on Pacifica’s various boards and commissions.

But even for Pacifica, it came as a shock on June 2 when all 17 men running for the council were defeated, and four of the five women in the race came out on top.

“I think it was surprising it was all women,” said Pacifica travel agent Sheila Hyman, who cast her ballot for three winners and one man. “I think people want something different and I think that’s what’s happening across the country. Things are changing.”

Pacifica, often forgotten in the vast metropolitan region of the Bay Area, stretches seven miles along the rugged San Mateo County coast just south of San Francisco.

With a population of 38,000, it boasts beautiful beaches and some of the lowest-cost housing in the region. It is a convenient bedroom community for San Francisco, but it is undoubtedly best known for the icy fog that rolls in regularly from the Pacific and blankets the city.

Perched on ridges and tucked into valleys, the town is linked to the rest of the world by only one main road--California 1. All in all, it is an insular place dominated by the kind of small-town politics where voters know the candidates personally.

Over the last year, the town has been caught up in a nasty fight over a new lighting and landscaping tax that was imposed by the previous City Council. Angered by what they considered the council’s arrogant attitude, the voters ousted four council members--including one woman--in a recall election in March.

Two weeks ago, the town voted to replace the discredited council members with real estate agent and recall leader Ellen Castelli, self-appointed civic watchdog Vi Gotelli, homemaker and activist Julie Lancelle, and Carr, who were all well known in the community. They will join Councilwoman Bonnie Wells, the one member of the council who was not recalled.

“I really don’t think the voters made any conscious decision to elect only women,” said Wells, who is likely to be chosen by the others as the new mayor. “That’s just the way results turned out. I think they chose four people who could do the job and they happened to all be women.”

Women’s groups and governmental organizations do not know of any other city in California that has elected an all-female city council, although no agency would necessarily keep records of such an event if it had occurred before.

The last known case of an all-woman city council was in Cottonwood Falls, Kan., in 1889--more than 30 years before women won the right to vote. According to the Chase County Historical Society, the town’s “whiskey element” put up a slate of women as a joke. In retaliation, the women actively campaigned and won all five council seats and the job of mayor.

Grace McCarthy was mayor of Pacifica in 1967 and recalls that she was one of only 14 women at the time who were mayors of U.S. cities with a population of 30,000 or more.

As voters in Pacifica prepared to cast their ballots this month, she said, there was no realization that they might end up with an all-female council. “It didn’t even occur to me that it could be all women,” said McCarthy, known locally by the nickname Lady Pacifica. “On the whole, I think people were very pleased.”

The victors all ran independent, issue-oriented campaigns and none stressed her gender. Afterward, they all said that being women had little or nothing to do with their victories and several bent over backward to distinguish themselves from feminist politicians.

“A lot of men voted for me and helped me run my campaign,” said Gotelli, who won her first race after several tries. “I don’t like to pit gender against gender.”

Added Carr: “It feels great to be a human being who was elected.”

Lancelle, the most liberal of the winners, acknowledged that some voters, alienated by the previous council, might have been subconsciously attracted to the more feminine qualities of healing and caring. But that would not have been enough to tip the balance in Pacifica, she said.

“I think it’s a coincidence it turned out this way,” she said. “The significance of it remains to be seen. We’ll see whether having all women on the council produces a different result.”

Times researcher Norma Kaufman contributed to this story.