Myers Focus of Council Candidates : Election: The city attorney is a target because of the rent control ordinance he crafted and his refusal to prosecute transients who camp in parks.

An “aging surfer,” a solar energy enthusiast and a homeless gadfly number among the 19 candidates filing for a City Council race in Santa Monica that shows signs of turning into a referendum on one man: City Atty. Robert M. Myers.

“The opposition seems to be united in one thing and one thing only--they want to get the city attorney,” said Steve Alpert, a local activist and member of Santa Monicans for Renters Rights (SMRR), the city’s powerful rent-control lobby.

The question, as Alpert and others see it, is whether the backlash against Myers will fizzle as tenants begin to realize that Myers--author of the city’s rent control law and its most skillful defender--needs the continued support of a friendly council if rent control is to survive in its present form.

“We could be in a free fall without a pro-rent control City Council,” Alpert said at the close of Wednesday’s filing deadline. The election is Nov. 3.

Myers has long been considered anathema by Santa Monica landlords and some other business people, but in a city where a large majority of the residents are renters, such opposition has not posed a serious political threat to him or his SMRR allies.

This year, however, he carries additional baggage. Over the past year, a citizen task force and the City Council have begun to implement a comprehensive plan for dealing with Santa Monica’s large homeless population. A significant element of the plan was an ordinance prohibiting camping in city parks and other public places.

Myers, long noted for his tolerant attitude toward homeless people and his concern for their civil rights, has refused to prosecute violators of the camping law. Among many residents, frustration over the city’s apparent lack of progress in resolving the camping problem and other homeless issues is very high--and many of them blame Myers.

The seven-member City Council now has five SMRR-backed members. But four seats are up for grabs now, three of them held by SMRR candidates, so the potential exists for a radically reconfigured panel.

Only two incumbents, Judy Abdo and Ken Genser, are running again. Both have been endorsed by SMRR. Councilmen Dennis Zane and Herb Katz are not seeking reelection.

Two markedly more conservative organizations--the Citizens Protection Alliance and Save Our City--have also come through with slates of their own.

Save Our City is endorsing Los Angeles City prosecutor Asha S. Greenberg, financial consultant Alan E. Weston and Planning Commissioner Tom Pyne, an administrator at St. John’s Hospital.

Pyne, 48, said he wants to restore “balance and common sense” to city government by reining in wasteful spending and focusing on basic services such as clean streets and parks. He also said he wants to end what he described as “ambivalence” toward the Police Department--an obvious allusion to Myers’ refusal to enforce the camping ordinance.

Meanwhile, the Citizens Protection Alliance, headed by conservative activist Leslie Dutton, is backing seniors coordinator Edith C. Shain, theater manager John G. Baron and attorney A. Marco Turk.

In a written statement, Turk said he wants a council that will “act appropriately” to eliminate drug dealing, vagrancy and various nuisance crimes including panhandling, loitering, vagrancy and public drunkenness.

He also called for a council that will “enthusiastically support” the enforcement efforts of the police and insist on a city attorney who prosecutes all violations.

Both incumbents seeking reelection expressed a desire to continue working on projects they hold dear.

Abdo, seeking her second four-year term, stressed the need for continuity following the impending departures of Zane and Katz.

Citing a long list of social concerns, she also called for continued improvement in the environmental realm, singling out recycling, traffic flow and storm drains.

“I want Santa Monica to be a model city in terms of how we control what goes into our storm drains, and then take that message to the region,” she said.

Genser, who this year is serving as mayor, cast himself as a friend of “neighborhood interests” and dismissed the notion that voters will retaliate against the incumbents because of the council’s refusal to fire or discipline Myers.

“The issue is not whether Myers is city attorney,” Genser said. “The issue is: Are we going to have an effective enforcement and prosecution policy--and we’re headed toward that course.”

Many of the candidates who filed are new to Santa Monica politics, lured by the high number of council vacancies.

J. P. Sole, publisher of a Malibu entertainment guide and three-year Santa Monica resident, said he favors paying more attention to the homeless and better funding for police. He also urged City Hall to expand the limits of technology.

“I’d love to see us commit to making Santa Monica the first solar-powered city,” he said.

Another new face is Patrick Regan, an assistant film director who, at 53, described himself as “an aging surfer.”

The owner of a nine-unit apartment building, Regan complained that he has had trouble making ends meet due to rent control. Perhaps not surprisingly, he also took aim at Myers.

“I’d like him to prosecute people who break the law,” Regan said.

The defiantly homeless Beloved Gift Given Quail also filed for the race. The city clerk’s office reported last week that Quail, a council gadfly who rarely misses a meeting, turned in the requisite 100 signatures. As is the case with many of the candidates, his signatures have yet to be verified as those of registered voters living in Santa Monica.

Facing decidedly better odds is Planning Commissioner Paul Rosenstein, who ran on a SMRR slate in 1988. The organization so far has balked at endorsing him, with some members asserting that his brand of slow growth isn’t slow enough.

Rosenstein issued perhaps the first campaign promise of the fall season: to run a clean campaign. “I am sick of the dirty tactics used in so many elections,” he said.

George I. Hickey, a member of the now-disbanded Charter Review Commission and the Virginia Park Advisory Board, filed as well. He complained about council members more concerned with their own agendas than with the overall good of the city.

Candidates for Santa Monica Election Here is a list of candidates for office in the Nov. 3 Santa Monica election. The occupations listed were provided by the candidates in their filing papers.

CITY COUNCIL Four seats open * Judy Abdo, incumbent

* John G. Baron, theater manager

* Anthony Blain, attorney

* Merritt Coleman, urban environmentalist

* Dorothy Ehrhart-Morrison, child develop. specialist

* Ken Genser, incumbent

* Ellen Goldin, writer, activist

* Asha S. Greenberg, prosecutor

* George I. Hickey, self-employed

* James A. Munro, studio driver

* Joel Pierce, computer operations manager

* Tom Pyne, hospital executive

* Beloved Gift Given Quail

* Patrick Regan, assistant film director

* Paul Rosenstein, planning commissioner

* Edith C. Shain, senior citizens coordinator

* J.* P. Sole, publisher

* A. Marco Turk, lawyer

* Alan E. Weston, investment adviser

RENT CONTROL BOARD Two seats open * Lacy Dillard Goode, retired

* Barbara J. Miller, court reporter

* Robert A. Niemann, rent control commissioner

COMMUNITY COLLEGE TRUSTEES Three seats open * Blyden S. Boyle, pharmacist

* Llona Jo Katz, management consultant/trustee

* Pat Nichelson, university professor

* Annette Shamey, teacher

* Nancy Cattell, lawyer

SCHOOL DISTRICT BOARD Three seats * Julia Brownley, parent

* Neil Carrey, lawyer

* Margaret Franco, college counselor

* Mary Kay Kamath, incumbent

* Peggy Lyons, incumbent

BALLOT MEASURES Letter designations have not yet been made A proposal to raise City Council salaries from $50 per month to $600 per month, to provide dental and medical benefits to council members and limit members to three consecutive terms.

An omnibus proposal to amend the City Charter to bring it into conformance with state and federal codes, to update accounting principles, to eliminate long-neglected requirement for a city health officer and to reflect gender-inclusive language.