List of Candidates to Succeed Nestande Keeps on Growing

Don R. Roth spent more than $660,000 last year in his winning campaign to become an Orange County supervisor. Within the next few weeks, someone will get the same job for the price of a stamp.

Men and women hoping to succeed Bruce Nestande as the 3rd District representative on the five-member Board of Supervisors have been mailing their resumes and statements of support in increasing numbers in recent weeks, all bound for the desk of Gov. George Deukmejian, who will make the appointment.

But while the names of the candidates who have been mentioned--more than a dozen in all--are different, many of their comments sound remarkably alike. Being urged by others to seek the office is a common theme.

“It’s not a position that I pursued on my own,” said William G. Steiner, director for eight years of Orangewood, the county’s home for neglected and abused children, and now executive director of the Orangewood Children’s Foundation. “In fact, I was approached by a variety of people.”

“There has been a considerable amount of urging (me) to express a strong interest (in the job),” said Gaddi Vasquez, a former Nestande aide who is now chief deputy appointments secretary to Deukmejian.

“Initially, I did not think much about (the job),” said Norma Arias Hicks, a Brea council member. “Then I started having various people approaching me, asking me to consider it, to give the governor an option, so to speak.”

In Hicks’ case, the option is two-pronged: her Hispanic ancestry and her Democratic Party affiliation. A supervisor’s job is technically a nonpartisan post, but currently all four supervisors are Republicans, as are Nestande and Deukmejian.

Nestande resigned from the board at the end of January, midway through his second four-year term, and later took a job as vice president for government relations with Newport Beach businessman George L. Argyros’ Arnel Development Co.

Deukmejian spokesman Kevin Brett says the governor is not expected to appoint a successor “in the very near future.” He says Deukmejian will act as soon as he can, but wants to make “a quality appointment.”

“The governor’s office has been receiving applications and . . . welcomes applications,” Brett said.

Two weeks ago, the governor’s office contacted supervisors to mention possible replacements and sound out opinion. Included on the list of names mentioned then were: Fullerton Mayor Richard Ackerman; former Nestande aide Ron Rogers; former state Assemblyman Ron Cordova; former Brea Councilman Ronald E. Isles, and former City of Orange Mayor Jim Beam--who lost to Roth in November in the battle for the 4th District seat.

Other names mentioned in telephone calls to the supervisors by the governor’s assistants included Carolyn Ewing, a former aide to Supervisor Harriett M. Wieder and now a Caltrans official; one-time Placentia Councilman Donald Holt, and Chris Keena, an attorney and proponent of slower growth in south Orange County.

Roth said a Deukmejian assistant mentioned 14 names to him in a Feb. 24 phone call. Since then, Hicks, Steiner and Tustin Mayor Donald Saltarelli also have declared their interest. Last week, Saltarelli announced his resignation from the Tustin City Council and said he planned to move to Orange, in the 3rd District, next month.

Move to Forefront

Politicians and political consultants have been touting one or another name as the “favorite” to replace Nestande since he announced his resignation Jan. 21, and each week a new name has moved to the forefront as the supposed successor.

But the name traders also concede that Deukmejian could have a surprise candidate in mind. In 1974, then-Gov. Ronald Reagan caught county officials off guard when he appointed a retired U.S. Marine Corps general to succeed Supervisor Ronald W. Caspers after Caspers was lost at sea. The retired general was Thomas F. Riley, who still represents the 5th Supervisorial District.

In 1979, then-Gov. Edmund G. Brown Jr. appointed another former Marine, Edison W. Miller, to the board. But Miller, a former Vietnam prisoner of war accused by some fellow POWs of collaborating with his North Vietnamese captors, was trounced in the 1980 election by Nestande, who left the Assembly to run.

Observers say they believe a key factor in Deukmejian’s choice will be a candidate’s ability to win election next year to a full four-year term.

Vasquez, 32, says he is “committed to the governor and serving him and the administration as he deems appropriate.” Vasquez finished fourth in the 1984 City of Orange election for three seats on the City Council, outspending the second- and third-place finishers who, like the top vote-getter, were incumbents.

Have to Resign

Steiner, 49, won election as president of the Orange Unified School District and would have to resign from that post and move three blocks to be in the 3rd District if he is chosen.

Beam, 53, narrowly lost to Roth in November. He spent $707,000 on a hard-fought campaign that left Roth with bitter feelings.

Rogers, 35, won quick support from Nestande. Although he has never held elective office, Rogers has proven to be an adept campaign organizer and fund-raiser for other Republican candidates.

Roth says watching someone else get a supervisorial appointment at no cost while donors to his campaign spent more than $600,000 is “fine with me.”

“That individual, however, will come on board and within a very, very short time be involved in an election in the primary of June of ‘88, and he will start fund-raising as soon as he comes on board,” Roth said. “It’s not a free ride.”

And Roth says he expects the appointee will face a challenge at the polls next year “unless the Lord himself gets appointed.”