Countywide : Stanton Refuses Gift From Edison

Supervisor Roger R. Stanton and Southern California Edison haven’t exactly seen eye to eye on everything during the past few months: Stanton has publicly expressed concern about the company’s plans for power-line projects in Tustin, Irvine and Fountain Valley, citing potential health hazards.

The company denies the hazards--residents are worried about the effects of electromagnetic fields, but experts differ on whether there is any actual health risk--and is pressing ahead with its plans. That has not endeared Edison either to Stanton or to many of his constituents.

So the supervisor and his staff were surprised Tuesday morning to find that the power company had delivered to them a complimentary pair of food baskets, brimming with finger sandwiches, puff pastries and quiches. The same gifts were doled out to other supervisors and their staffs.

“We got rid of it,” Stanton said. “I just didn’t think that was appropriate, given that we have these issues before the board.”

Stanton, who commented on the gift only after other officials had already disclosed it, said his portion of the food booty was shipped over to the YWCA in Santa Ana, where local homeless people Wednesday got a chance to snack on finger sandwiches and desserts.

Brian Bennett, a former aide to Rep. Robert K. Dornan (R-Garden Grove), who became regional office manager for Edison eight months ago, said the gifts were worth about $80 and had been sent to each supervisor but that they were unrelated to the electromagnetic field debate.

“After spending all those years on the receiving end of these gifts, I’m sensitive to their concerns,” Bennett said. “Really, it was just a way of saying ‘thank you’ to them (the supervisors and their staffs), because they’ve really been helpful to me during the past eight months, as I’ve moved into this job.”

Bennett, who called the gifts “no big deal,” stopped by Stanton’s office Tuesday afternoon to smooth any feathers that may have been ruffled, and he and other officials scrambled fruitlessly to discover how news of the gifts got out.

Meanwhile, in other supervisorial offices, aides and their bosses looked on in amusement.

Confessed one supervisorial aide: “I’m eating the evidence right now.”