Chairman Is New, Problems Are Old : Supervisors: Roger Stanton will head board during what might be its most trying year yet as budget, jail crises threaten.

When Roger R. Stanton was last chairman of the Board of Supervisors five years ago, he was wrestling with dire budget forecasts, the political hornet’s nest of finding a location for a new jail and the question of whether he should run for Congress.

The more things change, the more they stay the same.

As Stanton prepares to take over the helm of the board again next week, the county is in many ways no closer to answers on any of these questions than it was in 1987. In fact, some believe the dilemmas have reached near-crisis proportions.

With the full heaping of problems on the county plate, some county officials say that the board chairmanship--once considered a “plum”--could prove more of a burden than ever before.

“This should be the most difficult year in the county’s history,” Supervisor Don R. Roth said bluntly. “I’m glad it’s going to be Roger Stanton (as chairman) and not Don Roth.”

Stanton, for his part, appears ready for his third stint since 1983 as chairman, a one-year job that is rotated among the five supervisors. “I’m not going to be changing my pace. I’ve been running full speed,” he said.

A former Fountain Valley mayor and college professor, Stanton comes to the chairmanship with professional training in management. That has left some county officials predicting that he could recommend a wholesale rethinking of county finances.

The 54-year-old Stanton also brings to the job a markedly different style from that of his predecessor, Gaddi H. Vasquez, who brings the gavel down on his last meeting as chairman of the board on Tuesday.

Where Vasquez is seen as an astute political compromiser, presenting an even-tempered and friendly persona in running weekly meetings, Stanton is far more combative and confrontational in the board room, observers note.

In board meetings, he has been apt to doggedly question and publicly chastise those with whom he differs--be it an unwary resident appealing to the board in a zoning dispute or a top-ranking county staff person.

Said one senior county official: “I know that when I get up on an issue that affects his district, I better have my act together. . . . He’s not going to be gentle. He can be unrelenting. And for the faint of heart, he can be very hurtful. You have to have a thick skin.”

Some view Stanton’s style as a sign of his intellect and hard-driving approach toward problem-solving.

Others, like Ray Chandos, a leading conservationist who has quarreled with the board often on development issues in South County, see it merely as evidence of Stanton’s “arrogance and rudeness toward the public.”

“I don’t think he’s much of a politician,” Chandos said, claiming that he antagonizes too many people.

Nonetheless, Stanton has done well for himself politically.

Stanton first made his mark in the Orange County political scene when he upset incumbent Supervisor Philip Anthony in 1980. The job of supervisor is nonpartisan, but at the time, Stanton was a Democrat and Anthony a Republican. Stanton switched to the GOP in 1984.

Stanton’s interest over the years in such issues as affordable housing, welfare fraud and fiscal prudence has won him high marks from some county leaders and helped keep him in the public eye.

He has even won praise from some in the conservation movement.

Stanton as chairman “is an improvement . . . from the perspective of the average citizen,” said Tom Rogers, who has helped lead a county slow-growth movement in recent years. Rogers maintained that Stanton has been the most consistent vote in opposing agreements with county developers.

With a seemingly broad base of political support, Stanton has often been mentioned as a possible contender for an Orange County congressional seat.

Stanton has said he is considering whether to run for a proposed congressional district on the county’s northwest coast, which includes Huntington Beach and his hometown of Fountain Valley. To run, however, would require a difficult challenge against incumbent and fellow Republican Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-Long Beach).

But political consultant Harvey Englander, for one, thinks that Stanton will forgo that idea. Instead of running for Congress now, Englander predicts, Stanton will remain as supervisor and focus on the “high-profile” job of board chairman.

Stanton and Vasquez are the only two incumbents facing reelection this year.

The chairmanship is high-profile, but how influential is it?

County observers differ. Some maintain that on a board marked by usual unanimity--the vast majority of items pass with little discussion and no opposition--the chairman is little more than a public figurehead among five more-or-less equal members.

But others point out that the chairman has some sway in shaping the board’s agenda on matters of public concern, speaking out on countywide issues and overseeing the administration of the county government.

The chairman “certainly is in the forefront,” said ex-Supervisor Ralph B. Clark, who served four stints in the post before his retirement in 1986. “If there’s a quote to be made (to the media) for the board, if there’s a disaster in the county, the chairman is the one who has to take over.”

A site for a new jail, traffic and growth, health care for the indigent, campaign finance reforms, a regional airport and a new landfill could all prove key issues pending before the county this year.

But in an interview, Stanton said the county’s budget problem looms as the biggest dilemma.

With a potential $90-million budget shortfall next year, mass layoffs could be seen. The main jail in Santa Ana is desperately overcrowded, and the county doesn’t have the money to pay for a new one.

As chairman, Stanton said he will try to “trim corners” and “make things fit the task at hand.” But he would say little about any specific budget plans for the coming year. That, he said, will have to wait until he gives his opening address as chairman at the board’s Jan. 14 meeting.

It is a speech that several county officials said they are anxious to hear. With Stanton’s reputation for hands-on management, it may be a year of interesting changes in the workings of the government, several said.