Leadership Void Seen as Peril to Measure M : News Analysis

Backers of Measure M, the proposed half-cent sales tax for transportation in Orange County, know that despite their small lead in most polls, they have their work cut out for them between now and November.

After all, county voters have twice rejected transportation sales levies, and are famous for pulling the plug on anything that hints at higher taxes. To overcome that historical reluctance would take leadership, but--on issues from taxes to transportation to open space to jails--many observers say that’s precisely what Orange County lacks.

At least that’s the consensus of more than a dozen of the county’s most prominent political and business players interviewed during the last two weeks. And as the county struggles to fill its leadership void, many observers blame the Board of Supervisors, especially Gaddi H. Vasquez, for failing to rise to the challenge.

“Forthright leadership means you take a political risk, and being a supervisor means not taking a political risk,” said Jim Erickson, a Costa Mesa lawyer who has served as city attorney in Irvine, Yorba Linda and Cypress, among other cities. “If there’s leadership in this county, it ain’t coming from the Board of Supervisors.”

Supervisors, who will vote Tuesday on whether to put Measure M on the November ballot, vehemently deny that they have avoided tough calls. Supervisor Roger R. Stanton, for instance, notes that he has a taken a strong stand against putting Measure M on the ballot and voted against the idea despite pressure on him to relent.

And Supervisor Don R. Roth, who chairs the county board, points to his outspoken support for high-speed rail and his leading role in promoting George Air Force Base in San Bernardino County as the region’s next commercial airport as but two examples of his leadership.

Other officials call the changing leadership an inevitable result of incorporations, and some even find the new balance of power--with 29 cities each governing strongly over small areas--an improvement over days gone by.

Still, the board’s critics are many and represent diverse constituencies. Tom Rogers, a San Juan Capistrano advocate of slow growth, echoes a widely held view when he attributes the county’s many problems--transportation, jail overcrowding, what some consider unbridled and irresponsible growth--to the supervisors’ begrudging leadership, arguing that inaction by the board has allowed problems to fester.

“The problems that we’re involved in right now are the result of lack of leadership,” Rogers said. “There’s been absolutely no leadership by the supervisors.”

While the criticism often is levelled generally at the board, it is most pointedly directed at Vasquez, who is young, articulate and yet widely known for his cautiousness. Vasquez is one of the Republican Party’s standout stars in California, and some observers blame his popularity for his wariness, saying that Vasquez is avoiding tough decisions so that he won’t sidetrack his own political ascension.

“He’s ambitious, and he doesn’t want to take a step that would cause him to go backward,” said John R. Simon, a Newport Beach lawyer who led the effort to derail a slow-growth measure several years ago and has remained an important player in county politics. “Gaddi has had the opportunity to be a leader, and he just won’t do it.”

Gus Owen, president of the politically powerful Lincoln Club, said he too is disappointed in the leadership of the supervisors and Vasquez in particular.

“He’s got the intellect, he’s got the communication skills, and he’s got the ability,” Owen said of Vasquez. “But still, I don’t think anybody on the board has been enough of a leader, and I think it’s hurting the county.”

Vasquez, who has only served on the board for three years, bristles at the suggestion that he has not done enough to lead the county. He is but one supervisor among five, Vasquez stresses, adding that his first responsibility is to his constituents, not to business people seeking a countywide leader.

Moreover, Vasquez argues that his long deliberations on whether to aggressively support Measure M do not reflect lack of leadership so much as careful consideration of a complex issue.

“I’m not one to shoot from the hip,” Vasquez said in an interview last week. “I’m one to evaluate a situation.”

In the 1989 Measure M campaign, Vasquez and the other supervisors were asked by backers of the measure to lie low. Supporters worried that the supervisors were too unpopular to lead the measure, but their absence seemed to do little good: Measure M last time around failed 53% to 47%.

“I find it astonishing that these same people who heavily discouraged us from participating would now be critical,” Vasquez said. “In the previous election, they’re the ones who told us to stay away.”

With that defeat as a lesson, however, some backers of the transportation tax are looking to the board for leadership this time, and are fearful that it will not be forthcoming. Vasquez, in the interview last week, said that after weeks of debating his position, he has decided to support Measure M, but political observers still are unconvinced that he will lead the fall charge for the tax.

At the same time that Vasquez’s indecision on Measure M has cost him support among the proposal’s backers, opponents of the measure are surprisingly critical as well.

“If you look at the people to be disappointed in, Gaddi would lead the roll,” said Rogers, who opposes the measure. “At least with (Supervisor) Don Roth you know what you’re getting. . . . With Gaddi, we had hoped for more, but he’s disappointed the hell out of us.”

Like many of Vasquez’s critics, Rogers believes that the supervisor’s political ambitions have stunted his willingness to take on controversial local issues. “The path to a good appointment or to a run for Congress is paved by the major party donors, and Gaddi’s a political realist,” Rogers said. “He knows not to rock any boats he doesn’t have to.”

While Vasquez does not deny higher political aspirations, he flatly rejects the idea that they have made him unduly cautious. He cites his pivotal role in pushing for a set of transportation arteries as only one example of an instance in which he has been willing to demand concessions of the development community despite the possible political consequences.

Come Tuesday, however, Measure M will be on the block. Supervisors have described Tuesday’s vote as little more than housekeeping, stressing that support for putting the measure on the ballot does not necessarily indicate support for the measure itself.

But the board’s critics say just the attendance at the meeting will tell volumes about the supervisors’ willingness to tackle the tough questions: Supervisors Harriett M. Wieder and Vasquez--in Germany with his family to see the Los Angeles Rams play an exhibition game in Berlin--both plan to be on vacation and will miss the vote altogether.

LOOKING FOR A LEADER

In an opinion survey conducted in June, a Sacramento-based political pollster questioned 700 Orange County residents about varied issues and public figures. Respondents gave these “overall favorable or unfavorable” opinions on the following:

Un- Don’t Favorable Favorable Know 1. George Bush, President 73% 18% 9% 2. Peter Ueberroth, former 70 2 28 L.A. Olympics President 3. O.J. Simpson, former athlete 68 6 26 4. Bette Midler, actress 65 10 25 5. Pete Wilson, U.S. senator 55 23 22 6. George Deukmejian, governor 49 41 10 7. Jack Youngblood, 49 3 48 former athlete 8. Marian Bergeson, state senator 36 10 54 9. Thomas F. Riley, supervisor 30 15 55 10. Henry T. Segerstrom, developer 25 18 57 11. John Seymour, State Senator 25 13 62 12. Tom Rogers, slow-growth advocate 25 10 65 13. Harriett M. Wieder, supervisor 23 16 61 14. C. Christopher Cox, congressman 23 10 67 15. Gaddi H. Vasquez, Supervisor 22 10 68 16. William Lyon, developer 21 16 63 17. Don R. Roth, supervisor 21 10 69 18. Alan Cranston, U.S. senator 20 65 15 19. Donald L. Bren, 20 24 56 Irvine Co. president 20. Thomas J. Mays, 20 7 73 Huntington Beach mayor 21. Roger R. Stanton, supervisor 19 11 70 22. Fred Hunter, Anaheim mayor 19 7 74 23. Daniel H. Young, Santa Ana mayor 19 5 76 24. Lida Lenney, Laguna Beach mayor 16 7 77 25. Kathryn Thompson, developer 10 14 76 26. Robert F. Gentry, 10 6 84 Laguna Beach councilman 27. Gary Hausdorfer, 9 4 87 San Juan Capistrano mayor

Source: J. Moore Methods survey for the Laguna Laurel Advisory Group.