Main Williams Challenger Faces Uphill Battle : Election: Advantages of incumbency make it tough on Blair, one of strongest opponents the veteran supervisor has faced, to catch up.

With more than two decades in elective office, San Diego County Supervisor Leon Williams is, his major campaign opponent concedes, “close to an institution” in local politics.

“The man’s been around for 20 years or more--give him that,” said Willie Blair, a former aide to San Diego Mayor Maureen O’Connor who left City Hall to challenge Williams in the June 5 supervisorial primary.

“When you think of San Diego politics, it seems like he’s just always been there. To some people, he is practically an institution. And institutions don’t change often or willingly. But, when the time is right, changes can and do occur. I think this is one of those times.”

As the three-candidate campaign enters its final two weeks, however, relatively few see Blair as the political wrecking ball capable of razing an institution.

Indeed, although Blair is arguably the most credible challenger Williams has faced since early in his career, the consensus within political circles is that Williams, a 67-year-old former San Diego city councilman, will be reelected to a third four-year term. The third candidate in the 4th Supervisorial District contest is former San Diego City Councilman Mike Schaefer, a frequent unsuccessful candidate since leaving City Hall in the early 1970s.

“I expect this election to be over in June,” Williams predicted confidently. If no candidate receives the 50%-plus majority necessary for outright election in the primary, the top two vote-getters will compete in a November runoff in the 4th District, which covers much of the central and southern parts of the city of San Diego, stretching from Loma Portal north to Linda Vista, south to Logan Heights and the National City boundary and east to Encanto and East San Diego.

Unopposed in his 1986 race and an easy winner in 1982, Williams has mounted an active, if low-key, campaign that plays off the substantial assets he brought to it, including the name-recognition and fund-raising advantages attendant to incumbency, as well as an endorsement list laced with business, civic and political luminaries.

Able to take credit for a wide range of county programs, Williams also has sought to sidestep blame for the county’s growing financial, law enforcement and other woes, arguing that, whatever the current problems, they are less severe than those that existed when he was first elected supervisor in 1982.

“Back in the early ‘80s, the words county in chaos constantly appeared in headlines,” said Williams, who served on the City Council from 1969 to 1982, representing a district that largely overlaps his current one. “We still have serious problems, but many of them aren’t of our making.”

Problems such as jail crowding, inadequate court space, deteriorating infrastructure and program cutbacks, Williams contends, are attributable primarily to state funding inequities--the subject of several county lawsuits against the state--and a growth rate that has outpaced services and the county’s available financial resources.

“This board has been very pro-active, but there’s only so much you can do, so long as the county isn’t receiving its fair share of dollars from Sacramento,” said Williams, the board’s chairman, a largely ceremonial job rotated yearly among the supervisors. “We’ve cut and trimmed and done just about everything we can to spend the dollars we do have more effectively. The key to doing more is winning those lawsuits. Anyone who says there’s a simpler answer or that there’s still fat to trim just doesn’t know what he’s talking about.”

Blair and Schaefer, however, argue that Williams must share responsibility for the fact that San Diego ranks next to last among the state’s 58 counties in terms of per-capita funding from Sacramento--a disparity that costs the county tens of millions of dollars annually--as well as for the county’s other troubles.

“Leon likes to blame Sacramento or say, ‘It didn’t happen on my watch,’ but that’s too easy,” said Blair, a 38-year-old Encanto resident who served as Mayor O’Connor’s community outreach director for four years before leaving in February to become quality control manager of the Police Tow Operators Assn. “The problem may be in Sacramento, but it’s caused by politicians in San Diego not doing their jobs. The real problem is that this county--and this supervisor--aren’t respected in Sacramento.”

Similarly, Schaefer says: “Leon’s the chairman of the Board of Supervisors. If you can’t point the finger there, where can you point it?”

Hoping to transform Williams’ longevity in office into a liability, both challengers consistently underline the same theme--”It’s time for a change”--in their public appearances. In Blair’s case, that message is tinged with subtle attempts to exploit the 29-year age difference between himself and Williams, as evidenced by the frequency with which both he and his campaign aides use phrases such as contrast in energy levels and 20 years in office is a long time to draw distinctions between the two.

“I’m very aware of what’s new and current--there’s nothing like a generational gap here,” Williams said in an interview. However, although he professed to be unconcerned about Blair’s tactic, he took care to have an aide later call a reporter to emphasize that he jogs and bicycles regularly.

As highlights of his record, Williams points to his role in creating the county Human Relations Commission and the Commission on Children and Youth, his authorship of a tough no-smoking ordinance in unincorporated areas, reinstatement of proposed state cutbacks in indigent medical care programs, his service on a countywide agency that installed emergency call boxes on freeways, his advocacy of growth-management policies and his emphasis on funding preventive programs aimed at crime, delinquency and illness.

“I’ve done a good job, the board’s done a good job, and that’s why there’s no major issue, nothing to debate,” said Williams, a former county welfare worker and sheriff’s assistant who lives in Golden Hill. “Some of these frivolous things being brought up by my opponents show that.”

Last year, however, an anonymous survey in a monthly political newsletter then published by one of Williams’ former top aides ranked him last in overall effectiveness among the five supervisors. Although Williams’ defenders vigorously dispute that politically embarrassing finding, some concede that his soft-spoken, understated style and unpolished speaking skills have minimized recognition of his accomplishments.

“By nature, Leon is not very forceful or combative,” said the Rev. George Walker Smith, a politically prominent black minister. “Personally, I wish he had a little more fire in him that he could turn up every now and then to let us know he’s alive. In the absence of that, a lot of people think he hasn’t done anything. But it doesn’t always take a soapbox to get things accomplished. In his quiet way, I think Leon has done a good job championing the issues that need championing.”

But Blair, characterizing Williams as a “hands-off supervisor who throws out an idea and then hopes it will take care of the problem by itself,” faults the incumbent for problems ranging from a rash of recent jail escapes and service cutbacks to what he views as flawed minority contractor hiring policies and ineffective lobbying in Sacramento and Washington.

Even so, Blair--conceding the obvious--acknowledges that Williams’ high public profile creates daunting obstacles for any opponent. Acknowledging that he may have trouble reaching his $50,000 campaign budget goal, Blair said he expects to be outspent by Williams by a more than 2-1 margin.

“A lot of people feel it’s time for a change, but very few are willing to lead that charge,” said Blair, a former Navy lieutenant and a Vietnam veteran. “People who regularly do business with the county don’t want to cross someone they might have to still work with.”

One of the major policy distinctions between Williams and Blair involves the future of the county jails, an issue symptomatic of both the county’s law enforcement and financial problems.

While Williams has proposed establishment of a county corrections department, arguing that such a move would both cut costs and enhance jail security, Blair--questioning both claims--favors allowing the Sheriff’s Department to retain control of the jails.

Lacking a public record, Blair, like many challengers, usually offers answers long on generalities and short on specifics in attempting to explain why his performance would be superior to that of the incumbent. In one typical remark, Blair, asked why he believes he could attract significantly more state funding when persistent county efforts toward that end have failed, says simply that he would “work harder, longer and with more creativity to make sure we don’t keep coming back empty-handed.”

Schaefer, meanwhile, argues that the long-range solution to the county’s financial problems may lie in an initiative that would evenly allocate state tax revenues on a per-capita basis statewide, with local-state disputes settled by an impartial arbiter.

Running on the slogan “You know him, he knows you,” Schaefer, a 52-year-old lawyer, has had difficulty dispelling the notion that he is little more than a potential spoiler in the race who perhaps could siphon off enough votes to either affect the outcome or at least force a fall runoff.

A council member from 1965 to 1971, Schaefer has since lost more than a dozen races here and in two other states, including contests for mayor, city attorney, district attorney, judge, state Senate, Congress, State Board of Equalization, secretary of state in Nevada and the U.S. Senate in Maryland.

Frequent legal problems also have kept Schaefer’s name in the headlines over the past two decades, starting in 1970, when the then-councilman was indicted and later acquitted on bribery and conspiracy charges in the city’s Yellow Cab scandal.

In the early 1980s, Schaefer was jailed for six days in Los Angeles on contempt-of-court charges for failing to clean up a dilapidated apartment building he owned. Four years ago, his Los Angeles tenants won a $1.8-million settlement stemming from his neglect of repairs--a judgment that prompted Schaefer to file for protection under Chapter 11 of the bankruptcy laws while he appeals.

Although he hopes to be taken seriously in the race, Schaefer’s half-joking explanation of how he believes voters will react to those controversies appears to undercut his intent.

“Jails are a big issue here, and I’m the only candidate with firsthand experience with incarceration,” Schaefer says. “I’m also the only one with any knowledge of bankruptcy laws, which, given the county’s financial shape, also could be a plus.”