ELECTIONS / 1st SUPERVISORIAL DISTRICT : Chamber Backs Lacey Over Pro-Business Foes : Politics: Some special interests were angered by the incumbent’s opposition to a dam on the upper Sespe Creek.

For weeks, two challengers to veteran county Supervisor Susan K. Lacey had positioned themselves as pro-business candidates, hoping supporters of three businessmen who swept the Ventura City Council races last fall would now help topple Lacey.

But when the Greater Ventura Chamber of Commerce endorsed a 1st District candidate 10 days ago, it backed Lacey--a liberal Democrat on social issues who has strictly enforced the county’s controlled-growth policies.

“It might surprise a few people, I guess, because a businessman was running,” said Guy Wysinger, chairman of the chamber’s political action committee. “But Susan has a handle on the issues, and we felt that on balance she’s been a good representative of the business community.”

Left unendorsed was chamber member Richard F. Massa, the owner of a small Ventura medical supply business and a Ventura Keys activist, who insists that the chamber committee “took the safe road and endorsed incumbents.”

Both Massa and Ralph J. Steele, an Oxnard city planner, have emphasized their pro-business positions and blasted Lacey as too entrenched and aloof to be a good representative of the Ventura-based 1st District.

Green Party candidate Thomas G. Stafford and Ventura government gadfly Carroll Dean Williams are also running to represent the district, which stretches from Oxnard Shores north through Ventura and encompasses the Ojai Valley, except for the city of Ojai.

“Let’s face facts,” Massa said last week. “What you have here are four unknowns running against a 12-year incumbent who most people in positions of influence think can’t be beaten. If they endorse me and I lose, they lose credibility.”

The Ventura chamber began endorsing candidates only last fall, when it and a separate business-and-labor coalition supported the three successful Ventura council candidates.

The coalition immediately began to recruit candidates to run against Lacey, who had angered some business interests by opposing a dam on the upper Sespe Creek.

But the coalition--Venturans for Responsible Government--failed to produce a candidate and have not endorsed Massa, the only businessman among Lacey’s challengers.

“He’s kind of a single-issue guy down in the Keys,” said Carolyn Leavens, who was spokeswoman for the coalition last fall. “What we were looking for was an active participant in the community, and I don’t see that involvement in his past activities . . . . I think Susan’s got a clean sweep this time.”

Leavens’ own 1988 challenge of Lacey may have frightened off some potential supporters for Lacey’s current batch of opponents.

In that race, Leavens, a rancher and prominent Republican, spent about $100,000 in the primary, about twice as much as Lacey, and still lost by a 12% margin of votes.

Indeed, Lacey has been endorsed this year by a broad spectrum of organizations, including the deputy sheriffs’ and firefighters’ associations, the National Women’s Political Caucus, Sheriff John Gillespie and county government’s largest employee union.

The incumbent expects to spend $35,000 to $40,000 on her campaign, five times more than Massa, her rival with the strongest financial backing.

But her four challengers, none of whom has held elective office, said they think that they can deny Lacey a clear majority June 2 and force a two-person runoff in November.

Massa, Stafford and Steele all are actively campaigning. Williams participated in a recent candidates’ forum.

Massa said that since early March he and six volunteers have knocked on thousands of doors--especially in the east Ventura precincts won by Leavens in 1988. Stafford and Steele also said they have done some door-to-door canvassing.

Stafford, who helped organize the Ojai Valley Greens environmental group in 1988 and worked to put the Green Party on the ballot statewide, recently set up a four-person telephone bank that solicits support from voters two hours each evening.

A tape-recording at the Green Party headquarters in Ojai solicits volunteers and donations: “We have only three weeks left in Tom Stafford’s campaign,” it said last week. “We need everybody we can get to staff our phone banks.”

So far, Stafford said his campaign has about 18 volunteers.

Of the district’s 73,037 registered voters, 1,453 are Green Party members, 31,107 are Democrats and 30,998 are Republicans. Nearly 74% live in Ventura. The supervisorial seat is nonpartisan. The full-time job pays $50,232 a year.

Stafford and Steele said they have no endorsements. Massa has only the backing of the Ventura County Pharmacists Assn., which agreed with his criticism that county government purchases too much from out-of-county firms.

The 1st District race has been defined not only by weighty issues such as construction of the Weldon Canyon landfill north of Ventura, but also by opponents’ insistence that Lacey is unreachable and that government is unresponsive.

The race is notable too for its wide variety of candidates.

Lacey, 50, holds a law degree, is a former special education teacher and was a Ventura Unified School District board member before being first elected supervisor in 1980. She admits to a natural shyness and is probably the least vocal of the five county supervisors at meetings.

But during her three terms, she has championed the causes of poor and troubled children and is generally considered an informed decision-maker especially on air quality and transportation issues, welfare programs, mental health care and the environment.

“I am by nature an introvert,” Lacey said. “I’m probably not well-suited to being the stereotypical politician. But I am well-suited to being a county supervisor. . . . I don’t make speeches, I talk to people. My role is to bring people together and get them to talk.”

Though Lacey’s challengers have no experience as elected officials, their qualifications and experiences are extraordinary.

Massa races yachts. Stafford is a former member of the controversial anti-drug community Synanon. Steele once rode a motorcycle from Pasadena to Argentina.

And Williams, who calls himself “The Lone Ranger” and makes his speeches in rhyme, last year placed Ventura City Council members under citizens arrest when he thought that they violated the City Charter. No charges were ever contemplated, authorities said.

Massa, 51, was the outspoken point man for a Ventura Keys homeowners group that sued Ventura city and county last year over who should pay for dredging needed to clear the waterways.

Massa said he is running against Lacey partly because she refused to give him an appointment to talk about the Ventura Keys dispute and, in previous years, to discuss how he could sell medical supplies to the county hospital, which usually buys from large companies outside of Ventura County.

“You just can’t get to the lady,” he said. “And I’d say she is the least capable member of the board. She has her niche, which is children’s issues, but in other areas she does a much less than adequate job.”

Steele, 51, cites his credentials as a 23-year government planner in Ventura County, including short periods as planning director in Santa Paula and Ojai.

He was fired by Ojai in 1976 because of a dispute with the City Council over his handling of construction projects on which the council had delayed action, he said. “They fired the messenger,” Steele said, because he pointed out state laws requiring a council decision.

As a Ventura County planner in the early 1970s, Steele worked on the general plans for Oak Park and the Ojai Valley. An Oxnard city planner since 1977, he is now on loan to the Ventura Regional Sanitation District, where he specializes on Bailard Landfill issues.

Steele complains of “back-room deals” in county government and of Lacey’s alleged inaccessibility. He was particularly critical of a compromise two years ago involving Southern California Edison, air pollution control officials and the Board of Supervisors on emissions from the power company’s two local plants.

“That was the crummiest, rottenest piece of decision-making I’ve ever seen in my life,” he said. “They cut a deal in the back room and presented it to the public as a fait accompli. The public had four days notice.”

As for the alleged difficulty in reaching Lacey: “I don’t even bring up the issue, but every person I talk to unloads their list of unhappiness with her,” Steele said. “Even CEOs tell me they can’t get an appointment. It’s amazing.”

Steele said his own diverse background, including a canoe trip to the Arctic Circle and a seven-month motorcycle trip to Argentina, shows that he is “able to establish goals way beyond the current situation and develop a program to reach those goals.”

Williams, 49, of Ventura, is unemployed. He said his 23 years of experience as a manufacturing engineer at a now-closed Ventura company that made offshore drilling equipment has given him a practical approach to business that’s missing on the Board of Supervisors.

Williams has also worked for five semesters as an industrial arts instructor at Oxnard College, he said.

Stafford, 58, is a substitute school teacher who works throughout the west county in classes ranging from kindergarten to special education to high school science, he said.

He holds a degree in English from UCLA, but has held jobs as a gas company meter reader, truck driver, probation officer, children’s toy salesman and free-lance writer.

Stafford was involved with the Ventura County Peace Coalition during the Gulf War and has been an activist in civil rights, social justice and environmental issues, he said.

While he was a Los Angeles County probation officer during the 1960s, he said he moved into Synanon’s Santa Monica House anti-drug community.

“Little by little I discovered that Synanon was the only drug-free environment I could find,” Stafford said. “I realized Synanon was doing the job I was supposed to be doing and doing it much better.”

Years later, after Stafford left Synanon, allegations of intimidation and brainwashing of group members led to highly publicized court cases.

Probably the central issue of the 1st District campaign is the landfill Waste Management of California wants to build in Weldon Canyon at the mouth of the Ojai Valley.

Lacey has asked tough questions about the project, which would be in her district. On her motion, the Board of Supervisors put the proposal on hold last month, ordering more extensive studies of alternative sites and expressing interest in hauling the west county’s trash to Utah.

But Lacey has refused to take a firm position on the project until all hearings are concluded. “I will not lead a charge because if you start leading charges, you chill public input. And that’s not responsible.”

Stafford, who said a key reason that he is running is to block the landfill, said Lacey’s position “is a little softer than it should be. I think she hasn’t provided quite the leadership that is needed in these large projects.”

In fact, Stafford said he would try to impose a five-year moratorium on large projects countywide if elected.

Steele also opposes the Weldon landfill, because he thinks that the time has passed for local landfills. He said rubbish should be sorted at a central collection station and the portion of waste that cannot be recycled or composted, should be shipped to massive landfills in other areas.

Massa said he doesn’t know if Weldon Canyon is a good place for a dump. But he faults supervisors for not making a decision on the issue seven years ago, when a study showed the canyon to be the best place in the west county to replace Bailard Landfill when it is scheduled to close in late 1993.

And Massa faults Lacey for refusing to meet with Waste Management executives on the issue.

“She shouldn’t rely on professional staff, because they have their own feelings and prejudices,” Massa said. “And I didn’t elect Mrs. Lacey’s staff to represent me, I elected Mrs. Lacey. She owes me.”

Massa, who is routinely outspoken, also has been harshly critical of what he thinks are barriers erected by county government to public information.

He said that when he tried to review county annual budgets since 1980 in preparation for his campaign, county auditors told him that he would be charged $20 an hour because employees would have to monitor his review.

Chief Deputy Auditor Christine Cohen said Massa was mistaken. The hourly monitoring fee is charged only to review active files where documents could be stolen, not budgets, she said.

Massa also has reported in his flyers on the pay and benefits received by 27 top county executives. For example, those with 15 years experience are eligible for more than 11 weeks annual leave. And while the county confirmed the accuracy of much of the information, a benefits spokesman said Massa’s campaign flyer errs in several areas.

In addition, Massa has maintained that county government has spent $18 million studying water problems and that officials could have built “many” desalination plants or pipelines to the state aqueduct for that amount. In fact, both types of facilities cost much more.

“That was a little bit of an emotional statement,” Massa said of his estimate of the cost of water facilities. “But to have spent $18 million and to be no closer now to a solution is a waste of taxpayers’ money.” He said he got the $18-million figure from a city of Ventura official, not any county official.

Defenders of Lacey--and even old foes--take exception to some of the criticism from her political challengers.

Leavens, anything but a Lacey supporter, said she rated Lacey’s performance an F in 1988 but a C+ today.

“I’ve got to give the lady credit,” Leavens said. “She’s worked the last four years on her job. She’s out there with people at meetings, not just sending her staff. I know because I keep running into her.”

Lacey said she should be judged by the county’s comprehensive youth services program that she helped stitch together in the 1980s, the impending construction of the $8-million Casa Pacifica home for battered children, the $23-million Saticoy Bridge, and for her work to curb air pollution.

She said she attends meetings and community events several times a week to keep in touch with constituents. And she said her shyness years ago has allowed her to understand how hard it is for the public to address the supervisors at their meetings.

“I have found that choosing words carefully is very helpful,” she said. “If I do make a speech or a plea, people pay attention. And I think that has served me and my causes well.”

CANDIDATES QUESTIONNAIRE: B4