Week in Review : MAJOR EVENTS, IMAGES AND PEOPLE IN ORANGE COUNTY NEWS. : COUNTY : 2 Mayors in Runoff for Supervisor’s Seat
The municipal titans scrapped for months to succeed retiring Orange County Supervisor Ralph B. Clark. Now they get to do it all over again.
Orange Mayor James H. Beam edged out Anaheim Mayor Donald R. Roth by 714 votes. But since neither polled more than 50% of the vote in the four-way race for the $55,000-a-year job, they will go toe-to-toe in a November runoff election.
The election dealt a second successive defeat to former Santa Ana Mayor Jerry M. Patterson, who lost his seat in the U.S. House of Representatives to flamboyant Rep. Robert K. Dornan (R-Garden Grove) in a hotly contested race in 1984.
Beam took 34.6% of the vote to Roth’s 33.4%. Patterson, meanwhile, laid claim to 26.2% in a dismal (31%) turnout of the 4th Supervisorial District’s voters. Architect Manuel P. Mendez trailed with 5.6%.
With the last skirmish dead ahead in what is expected to be an expensive battle to replace Clark on the powerful five-member board, both Beam and Roth decided they were tuckered out and in need of a quick getaway. Roth left for a cruise through the Panama Canal.
Beam said he would see more of his desert retreat before resuming the pavement pounding for votes after July 4.
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