Limits on Growth in Santa Clarita Headed for Defeat : Returns: With most of the votes in, opponents of the controversial initiative lead in the race for two seats on the City Council.

A hotly debated Santa Clarita slow-growth initiative appeared headed for defeat with most of the votes counted in Tuesday’s elections as voters in a number of communities in northern Los Angeles County decided several local ballot questions.

Measure A, which would allow the city of Santa Clarita to approve only 475 new housing units annually through 2002, was winning only 42% of the vote.

The measure was proposed by Citizens for a Responsible Residential Initiative on Growth, or CARRING. Opponents, including developers and business leaders, spent about $240,000 to defeat the measure, more than 24 times as much as proponents.

In the same election, 16 candidates competed for two seats on the Santa Clarita City Council. Incumbent Councilwoman Jan Heidt and businessman George L. Pederson, both of whom opposed the slow-growth initiative, held comfortable leads. The other incumbent whose seat was up for election, Howard (Buck) McKeon, is not seeking a second term because he is running for Congress.

Antelope Valley

In the Antelope Valley, 12 candidates were vying for two of five Lancaster council seats. College dean and former Antelope Valley Board of Trade president Frank Roberts won one of the seats and George Runner, executive director of Desert Christian Schools, was the apparent winner of the second. However, Michael Singer, a Los Angeles County fire captain, trailed him by only 69 votes and about 225 absentee and provisional ballots had to be verified by the city clerk. That process was expected to take until Thursday. The lone incumbent in the race, George Theophanis, came in sixth.

In Palmdale, voters were picking from among four candidates for mayor and eight candidates for a pair of four-year council terms. With nearly two-thirds of the vote counted, Councilman Jim Ledford was leading the mayoral race by a substantial margin. In the council race, incumbent Joe Davies was leading by a wide margin, with Planning Commissioner David Myers second and real estate agent Teri Jones close behind.

Palmdale voters also were deciding two ballot measures. Measure B, which would ban the sale of fireworks in the city starting next year, was being defeated by a more that 2-1 margin. Palmdale is the last city in north Los Angeles County to permit fireworks sales, and the fireworks industry spent heavily to oppose the measure.

Measure C, an advisory vote on a $60-per-house annual tax to pay for a $24-million recreation center, was trailing by a nearly 3-2 margin. City Administrator Bob Toone, assessing the returns, predicted that the vote would kill the project, at least for now. He said the city has no way to fund the center itself.

Meanwhile, voters throughout the Antelope Valley were deciding whether to recall two publicly elected board members of the Antelope Valley Hospital District. The district’s five-member board runs Antelope Valley Hospital Medical Center in Lancaster, the largest hospital in the region.

With a third of the vote counted, Lancaster nurse Anne Brouillette and teacher Steve Fox appeared certain to be recalled. Brouillette’s only opponent was Mike Wilson. To replace Fox, former hospital assistant administrator Loretta Hansen was leading Dr. John Manning by a sizable margin.

San Fernando

In San Fernando’s City Council race, incumbent Salvador Ponce was upset and former Planning Commissioner Ray Ojeda and Planning Commissioner Rosa Chacon won council seats in an election that brought 34% of the city’s 5,426 voters to the polls.

“I feel great. I got my message across,” Ojeda said at City Hall. “I am really not a politician, just someone concerned about my community.”

He said his first project will be to try to build a youth center in the city.

Elvira Orozco was unopposed in the race for city treasurer. Also in San Fernando, Measure A, which would allow the former city police headquarters to be leased to the federal Drug Enforcement Administration, was overwhelmingly approved. The measure had no organized opposition.

In Calabasas, incumbents Marvin Lopata, Karyn Foley and Lesley Devine held their seats on the City Council, each of them getting more than twice the number of votes received by challenger Keith Ward. A fifth candidate, Barry Sullivan, who withdrew from the race two weeks ago, still received several hundred votes.

Times staff writers Mayerene Barker, John Chandler, Tracey Kaplan, Carol Watson and Sam Enriquez and correspondent Blane Halley contributed to this story.