ELECTIONS SUPERVISOR : 2 Favorites in Race Go Way Back : Some 4th District voters say it’s hard to choose between the council members, who are next-door neighbors.

Simi Valley City Council members Vicky Howard and Bill Davis--the apparent front-runners in the race for the 4th District county supervisor seat--have more than that in common.

They both are former members of neighborhood councils. They both served on the city planning commission. They are next-door neighbors.

In fact, it was Howard, a former real estate broker, who sold Davis his house when he moved to Simi Valley from Los Angeles 10 years ago.

It was also Howard who got Davis interested in politics.

As Davis tells it, the two were out working on their lawns one day when they began conversing about their jobs. During their talk, Davis learned that Howard served on the Planning Commission and before that had been a member of a neighborhood council.

It wasn’t long before Davis, an electronics salesman, decided to join a similar neighborhood group. That was in 1981.

Four years later, Vicky Howard, serving as a member of the Simi Valley City Council, recommended Davis for a position on the Planning Commission.

In 1986, Davis was appointed to the City Council, again with the help of Howard. He was elected to the post in 1988, the same year he decided to sell his electronics business to devote more time to his job as a council member.

During their time on the City Council, Davis and Howard have proved to be strong leaders. Some constituents say it will be hard to choose one over the other in the June 5 election.

“I like them both,” said Susan Dornblaser, a citizens group member. “They are very effective council members. I’d hate to lose either one of them on the City Council.”

Residents are not the only ones who are finding the choice difficult.

Davis, 62, has been endorsed by the Ventura County Firefighters Assn. and the Ventura County Public Employees Assn. Howard, 55, is backed by Ventura County Sheriff John Gillespie, Dist. Atty. Michael D. Bradbury and the Deputy Sheriffs Assn.

Three other candidates--Glen Schmidt, Harold Fick, and Tom Ely--are running to represent the 4th District, which stretches from Somis to Simi Valley and includes Moorpark. They have raised far less campaign money than Howard or Davis, and are given little chance of winning.

The incumbent, Supervisor James R. Dougherty, is not seeking reelection.

Although Davis readily acknowledged in an interview that it was Howard who got him interested in politics, he dismissed any notion that he is her protege.

“A protege?” Davis said, sounding surprised. “No, I’m my own person. I think people have found that out.”

Mayor Greg Stratton, who has endorsed Howard, agreed that there are differences.

“I think he tends to be a little bit easy with spending,” Stratton said. “I think that’s the major philosophical difference. Bill tends to go more on feeling . . . whereas Vicky is more analytical. She wants facts and figures in front of her” before she makes a decision.

Stratton, who said he is backing Howard because he believes that she is better able to deal with the county’s budget problems, offered this illustration:

Davis recently supported a plan to lend the Simi Valley Public Cemetery District $350,000 to upgrade its deteriorated burial grounds. Stratton and Howard opposed the loan because district officials failed to come up with a plan to repay the city or to provide collateral.

Davis, who along with Councilwoman Ann Rock worked closely with the Cemetery Board to come up with a way to finance the improvements, said the cemetery is a valuable public resource that should be maintained.

He did not seem bothered by the possibility that the district might not be able to pay back the loan. “If they can’t,” he said at the time, “I don’t think it’s going to destroy the world.”

Davis laughed when told about Stratton’s fiscal concerns. He pointed out that two weeks after the cemetery vote, both the mayor and Howard joined the other three council members in approving a plan to subsidize a new $1.5-million Boys and Girls Club facility.

‘What’s the difference?” said Davis, who told the council he would have supported the club if it had cost the city another million dollars.

Candidate Howard, however, said there was a difference in supporting the youth facility.

“It’s an investment for our children’s future, which is a lot different than planting grass at a cemetery,” she said. Howard said another difference is that the Boys and Girls Club has agreed to come up with a plan to pay rent to the city, beginning in five years.

Davis has been instrumental in getting the city to subsidize rent for a small group of seniors. He also pushed hard to get a measure on the June ballot that would amend the city’s slow-growth ordinance to give priority to developers who build affordable housing for the elderly.

“He puts his nose to the grindstone and helps people,” said Councilman Glen McAdoo, who is backing Davis. “I like his bulldog approach to problem-solving. He makes things happen.”

“I put people in front of government,” Davis said. “If a program we’re looking at is going to serve all of our constituents, and it’s a good investment, you bet I’m going to support it.”

Howard, however, said keeping tabs on how tax dollars are spent means making difficult decisions on issues like the cemetery.

“The budget is the key to the whole thing,” Howard said. “If there’s no money, you can’t do the job.”

Howard and her supporters say that she has more experience at the county level. The councilwoman is a member of the Local Agency Formation Commission, the state-established agency that oversees annexations and incorporation in the county. She is also the city representative on the Ventura County Transportation Commission and the Southern California Water Committee.

Davis, who serves as the city’s representative for the county’s Animal Regulation Department and is a member of a county highway safety committee, said he does not have more county experience because he has concentrated his efforts on local issues and concerns.

“I was elected to represent the constituents of this city,” Davis said. “If I’m elected supervisor, then I’ll serve at the county level.”

Development is another key issue in the campaign. The winner of the 4th District seat could play a significant role in determining whether two massive housing and commercial projects proposed for the Jordan and Ahmanson ranches in eastern Ventura County are approved.

Together the developments would bring about 11,000 new residents and 240 acres of commercial, office and retail space to the hillsides several miles east of Thousand Oaks at the Los Angeles County line.

Neither Davis nor Howard has taken a position on the two projects. Both said they could not decide until they see environmental reports on each proposal.

Both, however, have been criticized for taking contributions from developers to fund their campaigns. Nearly half of the $34,300 Howard has collected in campaign contributions was from developers, construction companies and real estate agents. About $14,000 of the $39,019 that Davis has taken in was received from the same type of sources.

Both candidates maintain that the contributions mean little except that they have a broad range of support.

Meanwhile, Davis and Howard said they have no ill feelings toward each other and that if the other is elected it will not hamper their friendship.

“It wouldn’t bother me at all,” Davis said, if his opponent were to win. “It would just mean I have a direct pipeline to a supervisor.”

Here is a look at the other candidates:

* Glen Schmidt, 60, is a Moorpark planning commissioner who served as county supervisor of the 4th District between 1971 and 1975. Schmidt, who has spent nearly $4,000 of his own money to finance his campaign, has frequently attacked Davis and Howard for accepting developers’ contributions. “We could end up with a runoff between two development people,” said Schmidt, who opposes the Jordan and Ahmanson projects. “Wouldn’t the developers love that?”

* Harold Fick, 52, is a senior engineer for General Motors. He has never run for public office. “We know what all the other candidates have done. They’ve already been elected to office,” Fick said. “We need new input. We need a business approach to some of our problems. I’ve been in private enterprise all my life, 32 years at GM. Now I’d like to do something for the community.”

* Tom Ely, 54, is a trustee of the Ventura County Community College District. Ely’s campaign has been overshadowed by publicity about his gambling debts and by a district attorney’s investigation into possible misappropriation of district funds. Ely has denied any wrongdoing, and says his 11 years’ experience as a county official best qualifies him for the job of supervisor.

“I’m the only one of the candidates who has been elected three times by the people of the 4th District,” Ely said.