Ex-Laguna Mayor Brand Will Challenge Riley

Former Laguna Beach Mayor Jon S. Brand announced his candidacy Tuesday for the Board of Supervisors, challenging incumbent Thomas F. Riley on development, offshore oil drilling and new freeway construction.

Brand, 52, said that Riley had failed to provide “vigorous leadership” and contended that voters in the 5th District, stretching from San Clemente through Newport Beach and inland to Tustin, were dissatisfied with the county’s direction.

“It’s kind of a pervasive feeling that we’re losing it, the quality of life,” Brand said. “Whether it be the freeways, the airport or the crowding in our schools, the crowding on the beach, we’re losing the struggle . . . .

“People move down here for a style of life and don’t like it being ‘Los Angelized,’ ” Brand said.

Riley rebutted Brand’s challenges point by point, and said he would defend his 12-year record as a supervisor in preserving Orange County as a “unique Southern California oasis” with “a life style second to none.”

No Campaign Help

Brand said he has no political consultant to help him raise funds or to run his campaign.

“Realistically, I think I’ll raise somewhere between $50,000 and $100,000, and that will be enough for what I need,” he predicted.

Riley, who trounced three challengers four years ago in the primary and was spared a general election fight, ended last year with a $97,000 campaign war chest.

Brand said he wanted a moratorium for one or two years on major new housing tracts in the south county to provide time to develop a growth plan.

He also called for adding new lanes to existing freeways before building new ones.

Brand said that after forming a committee last December to study whether to be a candidate, he found agreement that Riley’s “leadership in protecting our coast from offshore oil drilling has failed.”

In addition, he said, overcrowded schools in the south county are evidence that “the county has rarely said no to the developers. Now, our children are paying the price of uncontrolled growth.”

Brand served one term on the Laguna Beach City Council, from 1974 to 1978, and was mayor in the final year. Both Brand and Riley are Republicans, but the supervisorial seats are nonpartisan.

Teaches at OCC

Brand has been a professor of geography at Orange Coast College in Costa Mesa since 1965 and served three terms as president of the 600-member Laguna Greenbelt Inc., an environmental group working to preserve open space in the south county.

Riley said Brand’s call for a moratorium on tract housing construction was “totally unacceptable to the economic vitality of the county.” He said he joined the fight against offshore oil drilling and personally asked Interior Secretary Donald P. Hodel last year to extend the moratorium on such drilling. The effort failed.

Riley, a 73-year-old retired Marine Corps general, expressed confidence that he would beat Brand, who so far is the only challenger.

“The majority of my constituents feel I have done a good job and I feel I have done a good job,” Riley said.