ELECTIONS SUPERVISORS : Schaefer Leads; Howard, Davis in Runoff

Madge L. Schaefer held an early lead in her bid for a second term on the county Board of Supervisors on Tuesday while early returns showed two Simi Valley City Council members emerging from a crowded field in the 4th supervisorial district to qualify for the general election in November.

Schaefer, 48, deflected the aggressive challenge of Maria VanderKolk, a 25-year-old political newcomer who ran on a slow-growth theme but whose experience compared poorly to Schaefer’s 20 years on city and county boards.

“I’m absolutely delighted,” the 2nd District supervisor said after early returns showed her with 55% of the vote. “I think that the individual who is aware made a clear choice.”

VanderKolk, euphoric in apparent defeat, said her strength against a respected incumbent demonstrates voters’ depth of concern about preserving open space in the 2nd District, which stretches from Thousand Oaks to Port Hueneme.

“I think we’ve sent a real strong message that there is a wellspring of concern for the environment out there,” she said.

Early balloting showed Simi Valley Councilwoman Vicky Howard leading council colleague and next-door neighbor Bill Davis in a five-candidate race to see who will replace retiring incumbent James R. Dougherty on the powerful county board.

Howard, who has been active in local politics for two decades, lured Davis into politics 10 years ago and now faces a five-month campaign where her task will be to emphasize her strengths and his weaknesses.

“We were hoping we would take it in the primary,” Howard said while attending a crowded party at a friend’s home in Simi Valley. “To campaign until November will be a very big strain on everybody.”

Anticipating a runoff, Davis said, “I think you’ll see a lot more action” as the summer wears on. He said he expects to spend about $100,000, twice as much as he raised for the primary.

On Monday, Davis had said, “I can guarantee you it’s going to get a lot hotter and heavier in the next few months. Whether I’ll stay a real nice guy, we’ll see.”

Howard and Davis emerged early as front-runners in the 4th District, which includes Simi Valley and Moorpark. They said they felt all along that it would be close and be between them.

Growth was a central issue in both supervisorial races and promises to be revisited in the runoff.

Ventura County boasts of its restrictions that cluster new construction in or near cities. But with two massive housing projects at the Jordan and Ahmanson ranches pending, a possible swing vote on the five-member board was at stake on Tuesday.

Together, the adjacent developments would bring about 11,000 new residents and 240 acres of commercial, office and retail space into the rolling hills east of Thousand Oaks at the Los Angeles County line.

Both Davis and Howard, as members of the Simi Valley council, indicated their support for a complex land deal that would make possible the construction of 750 houses and a golf course at entertainer Bob Hope’s Jordan Ranch.

In the 2nd District, the Jordan Ranch issue was embraced as the central theme of VanderKolk, who was recruited by the environmental group Save Open Space. The group draws most of its members from the Thousand Oaks and Agoura Hills areas.

VanderKolk, who entered the race in March on the last day of filing, blasted Schaefer as pro-development and maintained that by accepting tens of thousands of dollars from development interests the incumbent was beholden to them.

Schaefer, who rode a controlled growth platform onto the Thousand Oaks City Council in 1978, characterized herself as moderate on the growth issue and emphasized that she is a conservative Republican. VanderKolk described herself as a “left-wing Republican.”

Patagonia Inc., a clothing company that successfully backed three slow-growth candidates in last fall’s Ventura City Council election, boosted the VanderKolk campaign in mid-May with its endorsement.

But Patagonia’s pledge to buy $9,000 worth of newspaper advertisements endorsing VanderKolk and Glen Schmidt in the 4th District was withdrawn after Schaefer asked the district attorney to investigate whether the ads would violate a state law that generally restricts individual and corporate contributions to $1,000 a year per candidate.

Acknowledging her likely defeat on Monday, VanderKolk said she considered her campaign a success.

“We knew we were complete long shots from the beginning,” she said. “Our main hope was to send a strong enough message that there is great concern out there about development--to send that message to the Board of Supervisors. If nothing else, we’ve managed to accomplish that.”

Schaefer, a college-educated housewife, waged her campaign as a sure thing, spending only about half of the $40,000 in her campaign treasury.

She spent most of the final week before the election in New York City, representing the county in meetings with Wall Street firms that rate county bonds.

Schaefer said her strategy of a low-cost, low-key campaign did not vary from start to finish.

She distributed two mailers, one reprinting a Ventura newspaper’s flattering editorial endorsement and a second stressing her conservative politics.

“I presume that people in this district, where we have a very high median education level, are informed . . . that they make up their minds over four years,” she said. “If I thought they made up their minds over what they hear in the last two months, I could have taken the first 3 1/2 years off.”

Howard and Davis share similar political backgrounds, both having served on neighborhood councils and the Planning Commission before becoming City Council members.

During their time on the council, both candidates have proved to be strong, popular leaders. Their popularity was underscored by the number of endorsements each received this spring.

Davis, 62, was supported by the Ventura County Firefighters Assn., the Ventura County Public Employees Assn. and the Ventura County Economic Assn. Howard, 55, was backed by Ventura County Sheriff John Gillespie, Dist. Atty. Michael D. Bradbury and the county Deputy Sheriffs Assn.