Knott Funds Give McCune Financial Edge : Politics: The Buena Park mayor has raised more than $17,000, surpassing the amounts raised by her rivals in the 68th District race.

Buena Park mayor and state Assembly candidate Rhonda J. McCune has raised more than $17,000 in contributions from the owners of her hometown’s biggest employer--Knott’s Berry Farm--making her campaign coffers richer than those of her rivals.

Besides the donations from Russell and Stephen Knott--both general partners in their family’s amusement park--McCune has received just $350 from other contributors, according to financial disclosure statements filed last week.

In this exceptionally difficult year for campaign fund raising, the Knotts’ donations were enough to give McCune a financial lead in the race for the 68th Assembly District seat. She has raised more money than Republican rivals Curt Pringle, a former state assemblyman from Garden Grove, and Joy L. Neugebauer, a councilwoman from Westminster.

McCune said Wednesday that she accepted the donations because she got a late start in the race and “it made others stand up and see that I had the ability to raise money.” But she also acknowledged that the contributions might give the appearance of a conflict of interest.

“I wasn’t as concerned as I should have been because I don’t think of them as being controversial--they’re an employer,” said McCune, Buena Park’s first woman mayor who was elected to the City Council in 1985. “In retrospect, maybe I should have done it differently.”

Pringle reported last week that he has received $16,458 in contributions to his campaign, while Neugebauer had just $1,534. As a result, the Knotts’ contributions to McCune have had a major impact on the three-way Republican primary since Pringle would otherwise have had a substantial fund-raising advantage.

“I was very shocked to see that kind of contribution coming from one entity,” said Pringle, who served one term in the Assembly before losing his seat in 1990 to Democrat Tom Umberg. “It truly is something that brings about a great deal of concern. . . . It makes her into a more prominent opponent for me.”

In 1988, amid widespread concern that huge campaign contributions from special interest groups were having a corrupting influence on the Legislature, California voters passed Proposition 73, a $1,000 limit on donations to state candidates.

But last February, the state Supreme Court ruled that the proposition was unconstitutional, clearing the way for legislative candidates in this year’s elections to accept donations of any size.

“There is certainly going to be an appearance that money is buying votes--even if it may not be the reality,” said Robert Stern, co-director of the California Commission on Campaign Financing, a nonprofit research organization in Los Angeles. “The question is always, ‘Why are they giving it?’ ”

City officials and community activists said there have not been any recent votes by the Buena Park council that have directly involved Knott’s Berry Farm. The amusement park, however, does stand to benefit from civic improvements the council has approved in a major redevelopment project called the Entertainment Corridor.

And while the city is suffering from severe economic problems, McCune was among the majority on the council who opposed a plan for an amusement tax on admissions to Knott’s Berry Farm and other city attractions. She had said earlier this year that the tax would be “biting the hand that feeds.”

Max R. Shulman, who supported the tax in his unsuccessful bid for the City Council in 1990, said the whole “council is a Knott booster. You’ve got a little clique there. They just rock each other’s boats.”

But McCune and Stephen Knott said the contributions to McCune’s Assembly campaign are not a reward for past support or an attempt to influence future decisions.

Stephen Knott--the son of Russell Knott and grandson of the amusement park’s founder, Walter Knott--said McCune is one of several Republican candidates the family is supporting in this year’s elections because of their demonstrated ability to serve effectively in office.

“We just want good representation,” Knott said. McCune “isn’t as recognized in the district (as the other candidates), so she needed some help.”

McCune said she has received contributions from Knott family members in the past for her council campaigns, but they have not been large amounts “because they don’t want the appearance that they are trying to influence the council.”

She said she believes that the Knotts’ contributions to her Assembly campaign do not represent a conflict because they will be only a portion of the $100,000 she expects to raise.

“I was concerned some people might say, ‘Oh, the money’s all from one source,’ ” she said. “I just hope people realize it’s because I got in late.”

McCune said she decided to enter the race in February after Assemblywoman Doris Allen (R-Cypress) announced that she would run for reelection in the nearby 67th Assembly District, leaving the 68th District without an incumbent candidate.

In making her decision to run, McCune said fund raising was “the big drawback for me because I had just run (for City Council) in 1990.” She added: “I got into this race rather late, so in order to get this started, Mr. Russell Knott decided to do this.”

The predominantly Republican 68th District includes the cities of Garden Grove, Buena Park and parts of Anaheim and Westminster.

The Buena Park mayor said that one week after she made the decision to run for the Assembly, she received a $1,250 contribution from Russell Knott on Feb. 6 and a $15,000 check on Feb. 7. A month later--on March 11--McCune received another $1,000 from Stephen Knott.

Although the contributions were a big boost for her campaign, she said she would have continued to be a candidate even without them.

McCune has about $7,000 left in her campaign account after spending $8,000 to hire campaign manager Mark Howell of Costa Mesa, according to her campaign finance report.