Race Gets Dirty in Sanitary District : Accusations Foul the Air in Midway City

Michael S. Dukakis a liberal with a filthy harbor in his back yard? George Bush a wimpy friend of drug runners? BOR-ING.

If it’s real campaign mudslinging you’re after, then look no further than the race for director of the Midway City Sanitary District. Something stinks in Midway City, and it’s more than just trash.

Depending on who you’re listening to, the directors of the Midway City Sanitary District are either on the verge of inviting the Mafia to clean the sewers and pick up the garbage of the district’s 80,000 customers or of taking the taxpayers’ money and flushing it down the toilet themselves.

OK, so maybe you have never even heard of Midway City and never mind that even most of the unincorporated area’s 5,800 residents have no idea what their city is midway between. (For the record, it’s supposed to be midway between Santa Ana and Long Beach.)

But did you know that Midway City, perhaps just an irregular grid of streets to you, has nonetheless extended the tentacles of its sanitary district to all but 10% of Westminster as well as the entire west side of Garden Grove?

Add to that the four characters--er, candidates--vying for two open spots on the sanitary board, a job that pays up to $600 per month, and what you get is a campaign run amok. And that just takes into account what’s being said publicly.

“This national trend of dirty politics is a sickening thing as far as I’m concerned,” says J.R. (Bob) Siefen, running for reelection to a 4-year term on the board. “That’s why all my statements are positive.”

Well, almost all statements. Siefen, a former plant engineer at the White King soap company, was talking positive before he started in on Jane Kirkpatrick, a 9-year board veteran and the only other incumbent running for reelection to the five-member board.

Siefen, 59, and Kirkpatrick, 60, can’t stand each other and each would just as soon take a swim in the district’s sewers as bury the hatchet.

Kirkpatrick, Siefen says, “is unexperienced and uneducated.” She is also, according to Siefen, obstinate, out of touch with reality and somebody who harbors an “I are the boss attitude.”

And as for a Kirkpatrick campaign flyer that accuses Siefen of being power hungry, a wild spender, a poor businessman and in frail health after suffering two massive heart attacks, he adds, “That is nothing but a piece of trash. She has done a lot to generate business for the district.”

Of course, Kirkpatrick, a former restaurant manager, doesn’t see the humor in any of that and instead points to “a piece of garbage” that endorses Siefen, who has been on the board 3 years, and newcomer Helena Rutkowski, a housewife.

That flyer, put out under the name of the 34-member Midway City Sanitary District Employees Assn., warns that Kirkpatrick and her running mate, psychologist Marvin Rofsky, have sinister plans to contract out for trash and sewer service.

“Trash collection is a favorite business for organized crime to ‘launder’ money,’ ” the flyer says. “Often this is done in conspiracy with certain international unions with connections to organized crime.”

Union’s Stand

Steven Pryor, the president of the employees association, says the union isn’t actually accusing Kirkpatrick and Rofsky of being Mafia shills, but points to the flyer when he says it’s “common knowledge” that organized crime goes for trash in a big way.

He acknowledges, however, that Mafia or no, part of the union’s concern is that its members might be out of work if the district decides that a private company could do their jobs more efficiently.

Kirkpatrick, meantime, wants to know why the Mafia would want “a little district with 34 men on it? I assume they wouldn’t.”

As for herself, she adds, “I’m a short, fat, little old lady, and I’m a grandmother. Could you see me fooling with the Mafia?”

It is Siefen, Kirkpatrick says, who is the real menace. She warns that he and his two “cronies,” who currently give the Siefen faction a 3-2 voting edge on the board, have driven the district into debt, cut service and adopted a holier than thou attitude that gets her so worked up that she can’t sleep the night after a board meeting.

“They get me so aggravated, so keyed up with what they are doing,” Kirkpatrick says. “I’ve been on the board 9 years, and I do not go in as Jane Kirkpatrick. I go in there as every taxpayer in the country.”

Colleen Maddy, a housewife and student who lives on Bob Siefen’s street in Midway City, didn’t pretend to speak for every taxpayer in the country, but added that as far as she is concerned, the campaign for director of the Midway City Sanitary District is “totally stupid.”

‘Just Dumb’

Campaign literature from both Kirkpatrick and Siefen “is just dumb. It’s just one guy slandering the other guy.”

And Art Horn, who as the president of Midway City’s Chamber of Commerce and Homeowners Assn. is the closest thing to a mayor that the area has, concedes with a laugh that perhaps the sanitary district campaign has gotten a bit raunchy.

“It’s been a show, to be honest with you,” he says. “You could almost sell tickets to it. But let’s face it, this whole political campaign, whether you’re talking about federal or state or local, it’s been a dirty campaign. Although I personally think it should be knocked off.”

But even if the voters are taking the race for sanitary district director with a shrug and a chuckle, the candidates most certainly are not. The Orange County district attorney’s office confirmed that it has received complaints about the campaign literature of both the Kirkpatrick-Rofsky camp and the Siefen-Rutkowski duo. “We are looking into it,” says Deputy Dist. Atty. Connie Johnson. “But let’s just say that we have quite a few complaints during these (election) days.”