3 Disqualified in Las Virgenes Races : Election Thrown Into Chaos

The campaign for three Las Virgenes Municipal Water District directors’ seats was thrown into confusion Tuesday when Los Angeles County officials unexpectedly disqualified half the candidates because of election filing irregularities.

One incumbent and two challengers were ordered removed from the Nov. 4 ballot. Voters were left with only one choice in one water district division and with no candidate in another.

Tuesday’s action capped a week of escalating feuding among candidates for the water board, which normally is involved in nothing more exciting than setting water and sewage tax rates in the 120-square-mile district between Woodland Hills and Westlake Village.

It also appeared to put the future of two of the agency’s five board seats in the hands of the county Board of Supervisors, which will be forced to fill two seats by appointment if no candidates are elected to them.

Sparked By 2 Actions

The disqualifications came Tuesday in unrelated actions by two county agencies.

County registrar officials declared that incumbent Division 3 Director Harold Helsley of Calabasas submitted only 17 of the required 20 signatures of registered voters, ruling that five other signature on his papers were invalid.

Meanwhile, the county counsel’s office ruled that the filing papers submitted by Division 3 challenger Gordon Miner and Division 5 candidate Kurt Moore were invalid because the signatures were collected by someone who was not a resident of the division.

Water board members called a special meeting for today at 9 a.m. at their Calabasas headquarters to grapple with the unprecedented turn of events. Water district lawyer Wayne Lemieux predicted that the session would include “a lot of shouting and shoving if everybody shows up.”

“It’s a sordid mess,” board member Tad Mattock of Calabasas said Tuesday night.

Board Member Blamed

But other water district officials blamed Mattock for the dispute that led to the two rulings.

Mattock has frequently clashed with other board members and he further angered them by admitting at a board meeting last week that he solicited nominating petition signatures for Miner and Moore, both of whom live in Agoura Hills.

Helsley and Division 5 incumbent Ann Dorgelo promptly accused Mattock of violating laws that prohibit outsiders from collecting signatures for local elections. Miner, meanwhile, asked election officials to recheck Helsley’s signatures.

Helsley and Dorgelo asked the district attorney’s office to investigate Mattock’s actions and called for today’s special meeting. They had planned to offer motions calling for their direct reappointment on grounds that their challengers were not legal candidates.

Role Being Reviewed

Deputy Dist. Atty. Candace J. Beason confirmed that her office is reviewing Mattock’s role in collecting signatures. But she said it will be “a couple of weeks or months” before “we make a determination as to whether any criminal prosecution might be appropriate.”

The disqualifications appeared to be intensifying the dispute.

Helsley, an eight-year board veteran, said he would seek to reverse his disqualification.

Miner, who said he was present Tuesday when a lawyer for the county counsel’s office disqualified him as a candidate, said he would appeal directly to county Supervisor Mike Antonovich to have the Board of Supervisors appoint him to the seat.

Water board President Macneil Stelle of Hidden Hills called the dispute unprecedented in the 28-year history of the Las Virgenes district.

“The candidates are going at each other with hammers and tongs. I’m staying as far away from it as I can,” Stelle said.

Mattock, who is being challenged in November by Glen Peterson, charged that water district headquarters administrators conspired to thwart the candidacy of Miner and Moore, both of whom had pledged tough new controls on district expenditures.