CLINTON TO VISIT VALLEY, MEET EL CAMINO CHAMPS TODAY.

Byline: Deborah Sullivan Daily News Staff Writer

President Clinton will visit San Fernando today to help launch plans for a new affordable housing community that will combine energy-saving fixtures and access to the Sylmar/San Fernando Metrolink Station.

Village Green, slated for construction by Southland home builders the Lee Group and Braemar Urban Ventures, demonstrates the future of energy-efficient housing, said Rep. Brad Sherman, D-Woodland Hills, who will introduce the president at the event.

``The president is coming to the Valley to demonstrate that we can be energy efficient, not only on the road but in our homes, and that the goals of clean air and of meeting the standards in the Kyoto Treaty in global warming can be met, while living as comfortable, middle-class Americans in the Valley,'' Sherman said.

The 26-acre development will feature 186 homes costing between $150,000 to $160,000, each constructed to conserve heating and cooling expenses, said Village Green spokesman Mike Hoye.

Located across the street from the Metrolink station and its built-in child care center, it will include a public recreation area for residents. It is expected to break ground in June and to open in early 1999, Hoye said.

The president's visit to San Fernando is part of a busy trek through Southern California following several days of fund raising and visits with his daughter, Chelsea, at Stanford University in Palo Alto.

The Clintons spent most of the weekend secluded with Chelsea at the wooded estate of computer executive Steve Jobs in nearby in Woodside, a wealthy enclave.

On Sunday morning the Clintons attended services at Stanford Memorial Church on the campus' Main Quad. An unidentified young man sat with the Clintons in the first pew beside Chelsea, who is a freshman at the university.

Clinton's Southland visit began with a $10,000-a-plate fund-raiser at the Brentwood home of Sun America chief Eli Broad to benefit the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee.

It continues this morning with a fund-raiser breakfast for the California Labor Initiative, where he is expected to announce opposition to Proposition 226, which would bar unions from making political contributions without the consent of members.

Around noon the president will meet with the team of students from El Camino Real High School in Woodland Hills who won the national Academic Decathlon. The half-hour meeting, to take place at Los Angeles International Airport, will be the first presidential meeting with Academic Decathlon winners since 1993. Until that time, winners visited the White House each year.

Sherman said he was determined to restore that tradition when El Camino won.

``The last two or three winners of the Academic Decathlon have not had an opportunity to be applauded by the president, and mindful of this, I went to the White House last Thursday, and said, Damn it, the president needs to congratulate these kids,'' Sherman said.

He learned Friday that his request would be granted.

``It is so important that the president demonstrate to youth that academic accomplishments are on a par with and perhaps more important than athletic accomplishments, and while Los Angeles does not have an NFL team, the students of El Camino High School are our Super Bowl winners,'' Sherman said.