Local News in Brief : Countywide : Vasquez and Stanton Take Oaths of Office

Seven months after they both won election, Supervisors Gaddi H. Vasquez and Roger R. Stanton were sworn into office Monday in a ceremony outside the county’s Hall of Administration in Santa Ana.

Both supervisors said their experience in office so far has taught them lessons about how to govern through some of the difficult decisions facing the county.

The “challenges, while formidable and insurmountable to some, can and will be conquered,” said Vasquez, who was appointed to his 3rd District seat in 1987 by Gov. George Deukmejian and became the county’s first elected Latino supervisor last June.

“I am confident that we . . . will face the adversities and the shortfalls and overcome them with solutions, leadership and, most of all, the motivation to build a future for the next generation and beyond,” he said.

Stanton, who was first elected in 1980, is beginning his third term in the 1st District. “I accept this oath with more humility than I did in 1981,” he said. “Quiet perseverance . . . that’s the rule, not the exception for millions who are beyond the glare of public office.”

The ceremony featured a Marine Corps brass band from Camp Pendleton and remarks from state Sens. Marian Bergeson (R-Newport Beach) and William Campbell (R-Hacienda Heights) and the county’s other three supervisors.

Stanton was sworn in by Bergeson and Vasquez was sworn in by California Associate Justice John Arguelles.