Board Cool to MADD Pitch for D.A. Pay Raise : County salaries: Supervisors accuse Mothers Against Drunk Driving of taking sides in deadlocked pay talks with assistant district attorneys.

The local director of Mothers Against Drunk Driving received a cold shoulder Wednesday as she attempted to persuade members of the Board of Supervisors to raise the salaries of prosecutors in the district attorney’s office.

The response seemed to stem from the lengthy, sometimes heated salary negotiations that the board has been having with the 185 deputy district attorneys. The two sides are deadlocked and a strike has not been ruled out.

Some of the board members told Janet K. Cater that they were surprised that her organization was taking sides and that it had the same facts often recited by the deputy attorneys. Others seemed upset because MADD was challenging the board’s record on funding programs to fight crime.

“What I think I heard you say in your statement . . . is the inference that the county board has a low priority for prosecutorial services,” Supervisor Gaddi H. Vasquez said. “Is that what I heard you say?”

“What I said was if you’re not willing to pay for good people then that is a low priority on prosecutorial skills,” Cater responded. “Because you get what you pay for.”

In her short presentation to the supervisors, Cater said that MADD was concerned with the condition of the district attorney’s office, which she said was being hit by a number of resignations among its prosecutors.

“Because many of the experienced D.A.s that we depend on to protect the rights of victims of crimes are gone,” she said, “new recruits not only are lacking in experience, but they are also many times lacking in good people skills. Orange County salaries are simply not competitive with (salaries of) neighboring counties or even with the city of Anaheim.”

She said that MADD received its information about district attorneys’ turnover, workload and pay from the association representing the attorneys in salary talks. The information originally came from county administrators, she added.

“But the deputies had nothing to do with me going to the board,” Cater said.

Prosecuting attorneys and county public defenders are asking for a 25% raise over the next two years.

Cater said the workload of Orange County deputy district attorneys was much higher than that of their colleagues at the Los Angeles County district attorney’s office.

“The result of this heavy caseload is a lack of time for deputies to contact and meet with victims’ families. . . . This contributes to victims’ feelings that they are just a piece of evidence and they are abused by the system,” Cater said.

Supervisor Roger R. Stanton said that he was “extremely disappointed” at the possibility that MADD was interjecting itself into the collective bargaining process, which he characterized as very complex.

“I expected to be ignored,” Cater said later. “But I was instead surprised by the aggressiveness.”

Supervisor Harriett M. Wieder encouraged Cater to meet with supervisors individually. “It is obvious you are getting it from one source,” Wieder said.

Dist. Atty. Michael R. Capizzi said that he also was concerned with his office’s recruitment and retention of qualified attorneys. He said that he lost 27 attorneys last year to other public agencies and to private practice because many of them found higher salaries and benefits. He said that his most seasoned prosecutors make $74,000 a year, while their peers in Los Angeles and San Diego counties make $86,000 a year.

Sherry L. Metcalfe, president of the Orange County chapter of MADD, said that the organization considered the attorneys’ resignations a very important issue.

“It is of great concern to MADD that many of the experienced deputy district attorneys are leaving their jobs because of the lack of parity with other district attorneys’ offices,” she said in a letter to the supervisors dated Jan. 18.

“It has long been a maxim in the business world that you get what you pay for,” she said. “As long as Orange County is offering a non-competitive pay scale and benefits for its deputies, the county will not be able to attract the best qualified candidates.”

MADD has 1,200 members in Orange County. The national organization of a million members and supporters has been instrumental in lobbying for tougher drunk driving laws in California and other states. The group works with people who have lost family and friends in alcohol-related traffic accidents.