Ex-Bush Aide Named to Consumer Services Post : Cabinet: Bonnie Guiton will head a 15,000-employee bureaucracy. The department has been criticized for mismanaging state property.

Gov. Pete Wilson on Friday named a former Bush Administration official to head the State and Consumer Services Agency, a 15,000-employee bureaucracy with duties ranging from managing the state’s property to overseeing the way income taxes are collected.

Bonnie Guiton, who was President Bush’s consumer affairs adviser and now is head of a Washington-based conservation organization serving young people, will become the second woman and first black among the seven Cabinet secretaries Wilson has named so far.

Guiton, at a press conference with the governor, pledged to crack down on fraud, advocate privacy protection for consumers and turn around the troubled Department of General Services, which has been criticized by lawmakers and others for mismanaging the state’s property, buildings and purchasing.

On other subjects raised at the press conference, Wilson:

Maintained his opposition to an income tax increase, but said he is willing to negotiate with Senate Democrats who have called for higher taxes on wealthy Californians. He once again hinted that he prefers a sales tax hike if more revenue must be raised, saying he believes an increase in that levy would be less likely to slow the creation of jobs.

Pledged to find the best-qualified judge to replace retiring Supreme Court Justice Allen E. Broussard, who is black, but said he does not believe any seat on the seven-member court should be reserved for minorities.

“The standard is one of high quality,” Wilson said. “I don’t think there’s a black seat, a brown seat or a white seat on the Supreme Court. All of those seats are available to the people who are the very best I can get.”

Said he will veto legislation to bail out the Richmond Unified School District unless it gives a special state-appointed trustee the right to suspend teacher labor contracts. The district has said it will go bankrupt Feb. 28 if $30 million in state loans is not approved.

“What we’re talking about (suspending teacher contracts) is going to be necessary in order to get this place back on its feet,” Wilson said. “If it has to go out of business and we have to create a new district we will do that.”

Guiton is a 49-year-old former resident of Oakland who since Sept. 15 has been president and chief executive officer of the Earth Conservation Corps, a nonprofit organization that places young people in conservation-oriented jobs.

She worked in various roles with the Bush and Reagan administrations between 1984 and 1989 and was Bush’s consumer affairs adviser from April, 1989, until last September. She also served as assistant education secretary and vice chairwoman of the U.S. Postal Rate Commission.

Wilson said he expects Guiton to use her stewardship of the General Services Department, which is one of 11 departments in her agency, to find and eliminate waste in state government. He confirmed that John Lockwood, the city manager of San Diego, will be named to run that department.

“We’ll turn that around,” Guiton said of the criticism the department has received. “By the time we leave here, it will be identified as the best run, most efficient, best organization in the state.”

Among other things, the department has been cited for failing to keep track of the thousands of parcels of property owned by the state.

The governor also said he expects Guiton to be “a watchdog” for California consumers. He said the office should be a “bully pulpit” to distribute consumer warnings to neighborhoods, churches and schools.

“It will not be business as usual,” Guiton said.

She said one priority will be to continue work she began in Washington on preventing credit reporting bureaus from misusing the personal information they collect on individuals. In her federal post, Guiton supported legislation to allow individuals to prevent credit bureaus from adding their names to lists sold to marketing companies, which then use them to distribute junk mail.

Both Wilson and Guiton said they prefer to work cooperatively with business interests rather than resort to regulation or legislation to change unsatisfactory practices. Guiton said she is “very serious about finding that balance between the needs of business and the needs of consumers.”

Her conciliatory tone attracted criticism from Harry Snyder, director of Consumers Union’s California office. Snyder said Guiton did little on behalf of consumers while she worked in the Bush Administration.

“The record is blank,” Snyder said. “She missed the opportunity to do anything to further consumer protection while she was consumer adviser to the President. We found her to be of the chamber of commerce school of consumer protection: Let consumers fend for themselves.”