59 People Vie for Seat on Transportation Panel : Competition: Dana W. Reed is among applicants for public member post on the board, a merger of the OCTC and OCTD.

Bids to topple Dana W. Reed from his post as a member of the county’s most powerful transportation panel are under way.

Fifty-nine people, including Reed, applied this week for the at-large, public member position, which is open because of the June 20 merger of Orange County’s Transportation Commission and Transit District under the 11-member board of directors of the new, joint Orange County Transportation Authority.

The position is important because the public member often becomes chairman and is widely viewed as representing the so-called average commuter on a panel dominated by politicians with multiple, conflicting agendas.

Indeed, Reed’s selection as public member in 1988 capped a bitter, intense battle between those impressed by Reed’s Sacramento service as undersecretary of business, housing and transportation in the Deukmejian Administration and proponents of a wealthy lawyer and Democratic activist, Wylie A. Aitken.

Aitken’s supporters argued that Reed, a Corona del Mar lawyer, is too close to big developers, who donate money to political action committees that he helps to organize and administer for a living.

Now Reed, who rose to become the commission’s chairman and worked hard for the successful Measure M transportation tax increase, finds himself in a political struggle again. His competition this time includes former Assemblyman Curt Pringle (R-Garden Grove); Chapman College business school president James Doti; Pacific Bell Executive Vice President Reed Royalty, who also aided the Measure M campaign; Dennis J. Aigner, UC Irvine’s business school dean; former Villa Park Mayor Carol H. Kawanami, and slow-growth advocate Thomas C. Rogers.

Those are the applicants whose names appear frequently in the news media. But scores of other applicants--relatively unknown to the public--are also seeking the seat. Among them are business and management consultant Tayfun Amur; Sarah L. Catz, who is on a county rail transit advisory committee, and Irvine lawyer James T. Capretz.

“I think this is wonderful,” said Santa Ana Mayor Daniel H. Young, who will become one of the city representatives on the 11-member authority board on June 20. “I think there was a perception . . . that only a few (big-name) people would apply, but we have a tremendous group to choose from. . . . All bets are off.”

The procedure for selecting the public member is complicated. Transportation Commission Executive Director Stanley T. Oftelie has recommended that the authority board meet in an informal, non-binding session May 30 to narrow the list of applicants.

Oftelie has recommended that Bill Farris, the public member of the Transit District’s board, and Reed, the public member of the commission, step down during that discussion and be replaced by city member-designates Robert P. Wahlstrom, a Los Alamitos City Council member, and Santa Ana’s Young. Farris had previously announced that he will not seek the public member seat for the new authority.

Interviews of the finalists are scheduled to be conducted in public session June 10. A straw vote could be held or deferred until June 20, when a swearing-in session is scheduled for the entire authority. At that meeting, the Transit District and Transportation Commission will cease to exist.

The authority’s board will consist of six representatives from cities within the county, four of the five county supervisors and the public member.

The county League of Cities has already designated its members: Wahlstrom, Young, Tustin Councilman Richard B. Edgar, San Juan Capistrano Councilman Gary L. Hausdorfer, Anaheim Councilman Irv Pickler and La Habra Councilman William D. Mahoney; so has the Board of Supervisors: Roger R. Stanton, Harriett M. Wieder, Don R. Roth and Thomas F. Riley.

Edgar and Stanton are on both the present commission and district boards; Pickler, Mahoney, Riley and Wieder are members of the commission; Hausdorfer and Roth are on the district board.

The selection of the public member for the joint authority will set up another contest that will not be settled for six months to a year or more: whether Oftelie can hold onto his job as the authority’s executive director.

County and city officials speculate that Oftelie will participate as an applicant in a national talent search.

Although both Oftelie and Reed have been criticized for being too political in their management styles by some members of the League of Cities, they are strongly defended as shrewd, intelligent, can-do leaders by other members.

Under the merger, district General Manager James P. Reichert will be almost a co-equal of Oftelie in the new authority. But Oftelie alone will report directly to the authority’s board.