City Hall News : Defeat of City Council Veterans Expected to Alter Priorities : Politics: Nearly a third of the region’s 44 incumbents seeking reelection were unseated. Many issues in doubt.

The ousting of more than a dozen incumbents and the election of a host of new faces last week could mean changes in several San Gabriel Valley cities.

Across the region, 24 new City Council members and a new mayor in Azusa began taking office this week as 14 incumbents who lost and another 11 who retired took their last bows.

Nearly a third of the valley’s 44 incumbents seeking reelection were unseated.

In Monterey Park, the defeat of Sam Kiang, who successfully repelled a proposal to build a card club last year before it even became a formal plan, could mean a development firm will try again for a referendum on the issue.

The result also means that the city probably will go forward with an $11.5-million city redevelopment agency investment in a large multiscreen cinema and specialty-store complex on North Atlantic Avenue. All the defeated candidates opposed it.

The council last year approved the investment in the complex, which has been proposed by BCTC Development Corp., the same developer that wants a card club.

Voters elected incumbents Fred Balderrama and Marie Purvis and challenger Francisco Alonso, all of whom favor putting a card club on the ballot, over three Asian Americans--Kiang, Peter Chan and Mitchell Ing--who opposed the idea.

Although BCTC did not financially support any candidates, a consultant for the firm was behind a flyer of election rules sent out to Monterey Park homes in English and Chinese that the acting secretary of state said may have illegally discouraged Chinese American voters. The secretary has asked the district attorney to investigate.

“The council is going to take the position of gambling interests and say, ‘Let the people decide,’ while not pointing out any of the negative impacts,” said Kiang, who maintains that the flyer was designed to hurt his election chances because of his opposition to the card club.

Purvis remains neutral, saying, “It’s not my duty to decide the casino issue. If the voters want it, that’s fine; if they don’t want it, that’s fine.”

BCTC officials did not return The Times’ telephone calls.

In Arcadia, newly elected council members Mary B. Young, Barbara Kuhn and Sheng Chang all campaigned on a platform of pruning the city’s budget, including delaying a $5-million downtown revitalization project. Architectural plans for the project already had been drawn up, but at the new majority’s first City Council meeting Tuesday night, members agreed informally not to build at this point and to discuss the project at a later meeting.

The revitalization project, which was approved last year, would widen sidewalks and aim to turn Huntington Drive into Arcadia’s version of Old Pasadena. But the newly elected trio now outnumbers Bob Margett and Dennis Lojeski, who support the revitalization project. Young was elected mayor Tuesday, and Chang was elected mayor pro tem.

“Until we get the budget under control, any revitalization plan must be put on hold,” Young said before the council meeting, adding that the council might ask city staff to take a pay cut to avoid layoffs.

Voters sent a clear message to City Hall that they wanted a more conservative fiscal approach by ousting George Fasching and Joe Ciraulo last week from the five-member council, said newly elected council members. The retirement of Bob Harbicht created the third open seat.

In the Foothills city of Azusa, the election has thrown the issue of the city’s further restricting the operations of the Azusa Rock Quarry into doubt. Although quarry critic Stephen J. Alexander, who already was a councilman before the vote, was elected mayor, new Councilwoman Diane Moritz-Beebe and Councilman David O. Hardison are considered quarry supporters. With incumbent Tony D. Naranjo, they comprise a pro-quarry majority. Council members Alexander and Cristina Cruz-Madrid are the two remaining critics.

“I hope to get a third vote for tough restrictions on the dust created by the quarry, through public pressure,” Alexander said. Owners of the quarry deny its dust pollutes the air.

In West Covina, the election of two opponents of BKK landfill means that the majority of council members favor the closure of the dump in 1995. Incumbent Steve Herfert and Michael Touhey beat Mayor Richard Jennings and Stuart York, who argued that the city couldn’t afford to close the dump. The new majority chose Councilman Bradley McFadden, committed to closure in 1995, as the city’s new mayor Tuesday.

In Temple City, incumbents Bobbie McGowan and Mary Manning were unseated by candidates who opposed inaugurating a utility tax and promised no new assessments or increases in the lighting assessment fee.