Supervisor’s Aide Voted County Clerk : Board Members Divided in Appointment of Gary L. Granville to Controversial Post

By a 3-2 vote, the Orange County Board of Supervisors on Tuesday chose Gary L. Granville, a former businessman and journalist and current aide to Supervisor Ralph Clark, to take over as county clerk and “clean up the mess” in that office.

Granville, 56, will serve as clerk through December of next year, filling a vacancy created last week when the supervisors split the job of Clerk-Recorder Lee Branch and appointed Branch to be the recorder.

The unanimous vote to split the office reversed the board’s 1978 action to combine both offices to save money. Both jobs are up for election next year.

As recorder, Branch will keep his $59,426 annual salary. Granville will receive $57,012.

500,000 Documents a Year

The clerk is responsible for filing and maintaining civil and criminal documents and trial exhibits for the Superior Court. The recorder files and maintains nearly 500,000 documents a year for all real estate in the county and for personal property sold under financing agreements.

A management study ordered by the supervisors produced a 350-page report last March that strongly criticized Branch and his staff for rudeness to the public and resistance to change.

Branch later agreed to resign if the supervisors split the job and let him remain as recorder. That deal lets Branch get the important designation as incumbent in next year’s election, giving him an advantage over any challenger.

Board Chairman Thomas F. Riley said six people applied for the clerk’s position, and Supervisor Roger Stanton said “three others would be more appropriate in that spot” than Granville.

Stanton criticized Granville’s lack of managerial experience and said other applicants had “demonstrated track records” and a knowledge of the court system.

‘Absolute Independence’

“I feel very, very strongly about the professional aspect of this job,” said Stanton, who with Supervisor Harriett Wieder voted against Granville.

But Supervisor Bruce Nestande, who nominated Granville, said he supported Granville because of “his absolute independence.” Nestande said Granville was “best-suited to clean up the mess in the county clerk’s office and make it a productive unit of county government.”

Nestande, Clark and Riley voted for Granville.

Stanton said he believed the more qualified applicants were Martin Moshier, an assistant executive officer of the Superior Court; Marshall Norris, a deputy Superior Court clerk, and Janice Robinson, manager of the county’s Indigent Medical Services program.

Norris, who has run unsuccessfully for sheriff twice and for county clerk-recorder once, said he would be a candidate for the clerk’s job next year.

Granville “will be an easy foe to defeat in the election,” Norris said. Granville said he expected to beat Norris.

Norris said as far as the public is concerned, “nobody cares about the county clerk’s office; it’s not like a sheriff or district attorney or president or assemblyman or something.”

Norris had waged the strongest campaign for the appointment. Supervisors said he told them he had the backing of numerous lawyers, and he produced letters of support from Superior Court Judges Richard Luesebrink, Theodore Millard and Luis Cardenas.

Some supervisors said privately that they were concerned that Moshier or Norris might be too close to the judges, while Granville as an outsider to the court system would have more independence.

The county clerk now supervises about 280 people, Granville said after the appointment. That number will drop to about 200 in January when the judges take over direct control of deputy clerks working in their courts, he said.

Granville said he had not considered applying for the clerk’s office until Clark called him on Sept. 10 and urged him to do so. Clark announced earlier that he will not seek reelection after his term expires in December, 1986.

Although he has not worked in the court system or the clerk’s office, Granville said: “I think I can do the job.”

The new appointee said: “I wouldn’t call it a rudderless ship, but since Lee (Branch) made his decision to concentrate on the recorder’s office, there have been some uncertainties, there’s been a morale problem” in the clerk’s office.

The team that prepared the management study said Branch was “perceived by staff as distant and minimal, with his involvement and interest limited primarily to resisting suggested changes and refusing requests for resources.”

“We found that low morale and observed rude behavior toward clients both appear to be linked to a generally negative tone which is promoted by management,” the study added.

The report recommended combining the clerk and recorder operations into one department. Branch had run them separately.

Branch said the staff that prepared the audit didn’t take into account the problems his employees had in dealing with the public.

The audit came after the state’s 4th District Court of Appeal in Santa Ana had issued more than a dozen orders threatening to hold Branch in contempt for failing to forward files from Superior Court trials that had long been finished.

Granville said he wanted to examine problems in automating files in the clerk’s office and expected “to work closely with (the Superior Court judges) and seek solutions to what have been aggravating problems over the years.”

Granville joined Clark’s staff in April, 1984, after spending eight years as a reporter or editor with the Daily Pilot and Orange County Register newspapers. Before becoming a journalist, he was general manager of a small company that reconditions industrial valves.