Ruane to Head County Environmental Agency : Government: Supervisors pick him over 12 other contenders. At 32, he becomes the youngest person to ever head a county agency.

The County Board of Supervisors has named 32-year-old Michael Ruane as the new director of the powerful Environmental Management Agency, making him the youngest person ever to head a county agency.

Ruane, who has been director of the EMA’s planning division for only a year, beat out 12 other contenders for the job, including three longtime environmental agency department heads. His appointment drew some complaints from environmental activists but was unanimously approved by the board Wednesday.

“He’s young? What’s wrong with that? I’m pretty old,” quipped Board Vice Chairman Don R. Roth. “He’s a man of vision . . . There are many issues that are going to be before us in the 1990s that will take a lot of energy and youth to address.”

Board Chairman Thomas F. Riley said Ruane would bring a “certain crispness” to daily operations at the EMA.

Environmentalists described Ruane as a competent technician but complained that he lacked sensitivity to environmental concerns. Ruane, who joined the EMA in 1980, has been in a highly visible position since his appointment last November to head the agency’s planning division.

In that post, he has regularly dealt with the board on highly controversial issues and has administered a new county program under which developers are guaranteed irrevocable rights to build in exchange for promises to provide roads and other services.

Ruane said Wednesday that transportation will be the toughest issue facing the agency in the decade ahead, which promises to bring even more growth to the burgeoning county in the 1990s. Voters’ rejection of the Measure M road tax last month comes at a time when the county is already feeling the squeeze of dwindling state and federal dollars and growing demands for health care and other social services.

“There may not be a simple solution to the problem of growth management,” Ruane said. “We’re going to have to do more with less.”

Ruane also coordinated a task force of developers, homeowners and environmentalists appointed by the board in 1988 to draw up a growth management plan for the county. Environmentalists have complained that the plan adopted last spring is too vague to be enforceable.

“He doesn’t reflect the board’s concern for the environment because it doesn’t have any,” said Tom Rogers, president of Citizens for Sensible Growth. “If he had any environmental concerns he wouldn’t be head of the EMA. It’s that simple. . . . He’s a good employee. He does what he’s directed to do.”

Ruane took over as director at EMA on Wednesday, but his salary is still under negotiation, board members said. Ernie Schneider, who left the agency to become the county’s chief executive earlier this month, earned $80,000 as head of the EMA.

Ruane is the fourth director of the immense agency created in 1975 to deal with the county’s growth and the increasingly complex maze of state and federal environmental regulations.

The agency, second in size only to county Social Services, employs 1,450 people and has been increasingly in the public spotlight because of growing concern over traffic congestion, particularly in the developing areas of South County. As head of the agency, Schneider often acted as a mediator between developers and residents.

“I think he is the person to build on what Ernie Schneider started,” Supervisor Gaddi H. Vasquez said of Ruane.

Ruane, a graduate of UCLA and a native Californian, was among seven applicants interviewed for the job. Twelve county employees applied, including three EMA department heads. In addition, Tom Mathews, a former EMA division head and now executive assistant to Board Chairman Riley, had been considered a top contender for the job.