Fighting Huge Odds : Critics Unite in Bid to Oust Antonovich

Community activists from more than 20 homeowner organizations, many of them in unincorporated areas, have started a grass-roots movement to defeat Los Angeles County Supervisor Mike Antonovich in the November election.

The coalition’s organizers acknowledge that they must overcome huge odds to defeat the two-term supervisor, but they say their outrage with his record on development has sealed their purpose.

Critics have grumbled for years that the Board of Supervisors’ pro-growth policies have helped glut the freeways, crowd schools, threaten the environment and generally erode the quality of life.

The homeowner group leaders, who say they represent thousands of homeowner association members, have attended preliminary meetings to develop a strategy for fighting the incumbent. Many of those involved are from unincorporated areas where the county’s actions are most keenly felt.

But those areas make up only a small part of the 5th Supervisorial District. In 1985, 16% of the district’s residents lived outside cities and the number has decreased since Santa Clarita incorporated late last year.

The group, which does not yet have a name, plans to run at least five candidates against Antonovich in the nonpartisan June primary in hope of splintering the vote so that the supervisor will be forced into a runoff in November, said Dick Hubbard, an organizer of the coalition and founder of the Santa Monica Mountains Trails Council.

Others Involved

Other homeowner activists involved in the group are from Shadow Hills, Antelope Valley, Agoura Hills, Calabasas, Monte Nido and other places in the Santa Monica Mountains.

The group plans to meet again Wednesday and could announce a list of candidates at that time, Hubbard said.

“It’s a spontaneous kind of thing,” Hubbard said of the movement. “We aren’t having to beat the bushes to get people to join. We have a tremendous number of grass-roots people who would work their tails off.”

The obstacles the disenchanted constituents must overcome are many.

Antonovich has money and name recognition, both crucial in running a campaign in a district that encompasses 2,615 square miles and 17 cities. The district stretches from Alhambra on the east to the Antelope and Santa Clarita valleys on the north and takes in most of the San Fernando Valley and all of the Las Virgenes area.

Antonovich could not be reached for comment, but Tom Silver, his chief deputy, predicted that voters will reelect Antonovich overwhelmingly, just as they did in 1984. Four years ago, Antonovich beat his three challengers handily by winning 62% of the vote, avoiding a November runoff.

The supervisor enjoys a giant head start. He has roughly $432,000 in the bank, and his biggest fund-raiser of the year, a dinner at the Century Plaza Hotel, is planned for March. Last year, the dinner raised about $600,000. With 1.5 million residents in the district, it takes about $100,000 just to send one campaign mailer to every voter’s household, Antonovich’s campaign aides said.

Antonovich already has opened a campaign headquarters in Glendale, his political base, but a campaign manager has not been selected.

Some political experts suggest that while the race is nonpartisan, only another well-known Republican, such as former Rep. Bobbi Fiedler, would have a fighting chance at beating Antonovich in this heavily GOP district.

Undeterred by Odds

But the activists, who are tired of losing battle after battle with the supervisors, say they are not dismayed by the odds.

“I’m really excited about it,” said Sally Clark, whose last political endeavor was working toward Santa Clarita’s incorporation. “It’s the hottest idea I’ve heard in I don’t know how long.”

The organizers said the key to success is harnessing the energies of homeowners and environmentalists, who have protested Antonovich’s approval of countless building projects. His pro-development stands on a board with a pro-growth majority have permitted a buzz of development in some of the county’s last frontiers--the rugged Santa Monica Mountains, the desert in the Antelope Valley and the canyons in the Santa Clarita Valley.

“We watched one homeowner association after another that went down to defeat; we thought, gee, there must be hundreds of homeowners associations that feel the same way,” said Patrick Lauerman, a member of the Sylvia Park Homeowners Assn. in Topanga Canyon.

A critical step will be persuading the public beyond the unincorporated areas, where residents may not realize the effect of the county on their lives, organizers said.