ELECTIONS / SUPERVISOR : Challenger, 25, Struggles for Recognition

Environmentalist Mary Wiesbrock had waited for months for someone to step forward to challenge Madge L. Schaefer, a longtime force in Thousand Oaks politics and a high-profile county supervisor since 1986.

But no one did.

So, on the eve of the March 9 filing deadline, Wiesbrock, director of the environmental group Save Open Space, telephoned a particularly energetic group member who recently had caught her eye with a well-written letter to the editor.

“She said, ‘We need a candidate,’ ” said Maria VanderKolk. “We talked for a long time. I was sort of orienting myself to this. Until that point, I don’t think it had occurred to anybody that I might be willing to do this. They decided to give me a shot.”

Since then the 25-year-old VanderKolk, a manager at a Woodland Hills product licensing firm, has struggled to establish herself as a credible challenger to Schaefer, who for two decades has toiled in local and county politics.

Name identification has been a problem for VanderKolk, a University of Colorado graduate who moved to Thousand Oaks only 20 months ago, and who was unknown even to most of her campaign workers until she filed against Schaefer.

As recently as May 8, a VanderKolk press release highlighted her own lack of name identification with the headline: “Schaefer’s Opponent Charges Supervisor With Violation of State Laws.”

“A lot of people say they dragged this candidate out of the woodwork,” VanderKolk said last week. “But I think it’s a noble cause, and this country might be a lot better if we had people getting in there with new ideas and new perspectives.”

The central theme of VanderKolk’s campaign has been the preservation of open space in Ventura County, though she has declared positions on several other issues.

A member of Greenpeace and the National Wildlife Federation, she has blasted Schaefer as pro-development, citing the supervisor’s vote last year to allow developers to prepare environmental reports on the Jordan and Ahmanson ranches in the southeast county.

“Some people have the idea that I’m parroting what other people want me to say,” VanderKolk said. “But these are my beliefs I’m expressing, my concern about the Jordan Ranch issue. People support me because I’m expressing their frustrations.”

Schaefer, 48, a college-educated housewife elected to the Thousand Oaks City Council on a controlled-growth platform in 1978, has waged this race as if she were a poker player with an unbeatable hand.

Of the VanderKolk challenge, she repeatedly has said: “What campaign?” Statements filed on Thursday showed $29,000 in Schaefer’s treasury and $2,800 in VanderKolk’s.

The supervisor spent $8,250 this spring for a poll on the concerns of her constituents and laughs confidently about what it shows. Yet she will not discuss its findings in detail because, she said, “my little friend might read it” and get some useful ideas.

Recently, however, Schaefer has showed signs of taking VanderKolk more seriously.

Last week, she angrily claimed a violation of state law when Patagonia Inc., a firm that backed three successful slow-growth candidates in last fall’s Ventura city election, pledged to spend $9,000 on a series of newspaper advertisements backing VanderKolk.

Schaefer insisted that the Ventura-based company, a consistent contributor to environmental causes, had exceeded contribution limits and was using VanderKolk “like a pawn.” She called Kevin Sweeney, the company’s public affairs director, “a Colorado carpetbagger, an ultra-liberal Democrat dabbling in local politics.” Sweeney, ex-press secretary to former U.S. Sen. Gary Hart, noted that he is from California.

By late Friday, Schaefer had announced endorsements by Sheriff John Gillespie, Thousand Oaks councilmen Bob Lewis and Larry Horner, the entire City Council of Port Hueneme and associations representing county firefighters and deputy sheriffs.

VanderKolk has been endorsed only by Save Open Space, which Wiesbrock said has 144 members, many of them from the Thousand Oaks and Agoura Hills area.

While VanderKolk said she expects perhaps 80 of her volunteers to knock on doors of frequent voters during the next week, Schaefer will reveal little about her strategy for the final days before the June 5 election. She will mail a flyer, she said.

Pamphlets distributed by VanderKolk’s volunteers will continue to hammer at Schaefer’s positions on growth and her acceptance of contributions from real estate developers, the challenger said.

One VanderKolk flyer asks voters why they should care about who is supervisor in the 2nd District, which stretches the length of the south county from Thousand Oaks to Port Hueneme.

“Because it’s time to oust politicians who are beholden to developers,” the pamphlets answer in bold letters above a photograph of Schaefer and billionaire developer David H. Murdock at a charity ball at his Hidden Valley horse ranch.

The flyer says that Schaefer has received tens of thousands of dollars from the development industry and notes that a county grand jury is investigating Murdock’s relationship with the supervisor and other county officials.

Schaefer voted for Murdock’s 1,900-acre country club and luxury housing development at Lake Sherwood in 1987, held a 1988 campaign fund-raiser at his ranch and has accepted a pony auctioned for $4,000 and a $1,000 contribution from him.

Schaefer has said that she thinks the grand jury investigation was prompted by a complaint by an old political enemy from Thousand Oaks. Developer contributions, which are common in Southern California, in no way affect her vote, the supervisor said.

Most campaign debate has focused not on Murdock’s Sherwood Country Club, which is the only major development approved by supervisors since Schaefer joined the board, but on a proposed land swap that would make possible the subdivision of the Jordan Ranch east of Thousand Oaks.

Under the proposal, the National Park Service would exchange 59 acres of parkland needed for an access road to the subdivision for 1,100 acres of the 2,309-acre ranch. In addition, ranch owner Bob Hope is donating and selling another 4,600 acres in the Santa Susana and Santa Monica mountains to park agencies for a below-market $20 million.

VanderKolk insists that the only reason for the swap is to develop the ranch and that approval will create so much pressure on supervisors that they will not be able to reject the 750-house project.

The land swap should not be considered separate from the county board’s approval, VanderKolk said. “There is no point in going through with this land swap unless they are going through with the ranch development.”

Schaefer said she favors the deal.

“Why she opposes giving up 59 acres for 5,700 acres just totally mystifies me,” Schaefer said. The deal does not legally obligate Ventura County to approve anything, she said.

The Jordan Ranch issue has created a rift even among environmentalists. For example, the Southern California Regional Conservation Committee of the Sierra Club approved the swap 18-4, but both Ventura County representatives voted against it.

VanderKolk, who describes herself as a “left-wing Republican,” has criticized Schaefer for allowing environmental studies of the Jordan and the adjacent Ahmanson ranches.

Schaefer, who describes herself as a moderate on growth and a “conservative Republican,” said to refuse such studies is to strip property owners of their rights.

“They must have a chance to state their case. What she is proposing with Ahmanson and Jordan was what the Nazis did. Just seize the property. . . . She’s young, but hopefully she’s heard about that in her history classes.”

Schaefer said that the key issue of the campaign should not be development, which is controlled by a county policy that requires it to be clustered in or near cities. Development issues are “probably one-20th of what a supervisor does,” Schaefer said.

The issue should be how well each candidate can do the job, she said. VanderKolk, who acknowledges never having attended a supervisors’ meeting, does not “have a clue,” Schaefer said.

Even rivals acknowledge that Schaefer, though tart-tongued and quick-tempered, is smart and hard-working.

Fellow supervisors said they do not endorse in supervisorial races, but declared Schaefer capable and direct.

“She’s a good board member because she does her homework, and she has a good financial head,” said Supervisor Maggie Erickson, who with Schaefer is credited with reforms at the Ventura County Medical Center that have led to increased collections.

County administrators say that through a Revenue Enhancement Committee created by Schaefer, the county gathered ideas from employees that saved hundreds of thousands of dollars from 1987 to ’89.

“She has ideas. They’re popping all the time,” county Chief Administrative Officer Richard Wittenberg said. “She’s hands-on. That’s her whole style.”

Supervisor John K. Flynn, with whom Schaefer has had her stormiest public differences, said, “Madge has the characteristics of a good leader. She is able to articulate positions.. . . She knows where the issues are and she takes off after them.”

Flynn said, however: “The county didn’t begin when Madge became a supervisor. The rest of us were doing much the same thing before Madge came along.”

VanderKolk, who claims several college academic honors, is well-spoken and says she is experienced beyond her years. She began to work full time in 1986 as a publicist for a computer marketing firm, according to her resume.

“I’m not the typical 25-year-old,” she said. “I’ve been a professional in the corporate world for five years.”

But in an interview she pleaded ignorance on a number of governmental issues, such as the sources of water for Ventura County.

“You can bring up a lot of things that I’m not familiar with right now,” she said. “I don’t pretend to be a career politician. There’s an excellent staff at the county. Their job is to inform the supervisors.

“I’ve gotten a lot of flak because of my relative youth,” VanderKolk said. “But this was the time to step in. If I wait another 15 years, the fight I’m fighting will be over. The open space will be gone.”