District 2 Supervisor : Main Question for Bailey Is Whether He Will Need November Runoff to Win

Earlier this year, San Diego County Supervisor Brian Bilbray predicted that he and the two other supervisors facing reelection--George Bailey and Susan Golding--would be “judged as a team” based on their collective record since taking office together in 1984.

When he glances at his colleagues at board meetings these days, Bailey must feel a slight twinge of envy, because he is the only member of the “team” who ended up having to run in order to retain his seat for the next four years.

While Golding and Bilbray are unopposed in the June 7 primary, Bailey faces two challengers on the ballot--Chris Heiserman, a former aide to state Assemblywoman Sunny Mojonnier (R-Encinitas), and Deputy Sheriff Clyde Rinkes--as well as write-in candidate Charles Wheaton.

Leadership Emphasized

Bailey’s campaign, however, is widely viewed in political circles as little more than a formality, with the only question being whether the 67-year-old former La Mesa mayor will surpass the 50% of the 2nd-District vote to be elected outright in the primary or be forced into a November runoff for the East County district seat.

In his campaign, Bailey has emphasized his leadership in the county’s decision to sue the state over alleged inequities in the distribution of property taxes and other revenues. According to county figures in the lawsuits, which still are in preliminary pretrial stages, San Diego has the second-lowest per-capita allocation of general revenues of the state’s 58 counties, resulting in an annual shortfall of more than $130 million.

In his State of the County address in January, Bailey, who is serving this year as board chairman, also threatened to refuse to implement new state and federal programs unless Sacramento and Washington provide money for their operation.

Along with his colleagues, Bailey also takes credit for helping to restore credibility in county government, described by Golding in 1984 as a “scandal of the month club” because of a series of high-level personnel disputes, criminal investigations into contracts, and widespread charges of mismanagement and shoddy work.

Over the past four years, the board hired a new chief administrative officer, significantly revamped several departments, and made other major policy changes that Bailey contends have “made tremendous strides toward improving the caliber of county personnel and . . . care in spending the taxpayers’ money.”

‘County Has Lost Touch’

However, Heiserman, who was an assistant to former Supervisors Paul Eckert and Lee Taylor before his five-year service as Mojonnier’s top aide, argues that Bailey and the rest of the board have been ineffectual in dealing with problems ranging from jail crowding to growth management during his first term.

“Our county government has lost touch with us,” said Heiserman, a 41-year-old Spring Valley resident. “Our county supervisors are closer to their huge bureaucracy than to the people.”

Meanwhile, Rinkes, a deputy sheriff for the past six years, has focused on the politically volatile issue of growth, citing the number of growth-control initiatives being discussed as evidence of the board’s failure to properly manage growth.

“If our elected officials were doing their job, San Diego County residents would not need to resort to . . . initiatives,” said Rinkes, a Descanso resident. “The Board of Supervisors may have inherited decades of problems to work out, but what have they done in the last four years?”