Growth Advocate Dies at 54 After Brief Illness : Politics: Public relations consultant Lynn Wessell of Moorpark was a central figure in major development battles.

Lynn Wessell, a veteran public relations consultant and mainstay of pro-growth political campaigns throughout Southern California, died on Christmas after a brief illness.

Wessell, who lived in Moorpark, died the day after his 54th birthday of complications following back surgery, a previously undisclosed diabetic condition and a severe post-operative infection, said Cathy Connelly, vice president of The Wessell Co., his Burbank-based consulting firm.

“We’re just still all in shock,” Connelly said Monday.

A former professor of government, Wessell became a political consultant in the early 1970s and emerged as a strategist for conservative causes--helping to defeat a statewide handgun control measure and to pass a statewide measure providing for testing of criminal suspects for the virus that causes AIDS.

But Wessell was a fixture in the battle over development controls, orchestrating the defeat of a slew of slow-growth measures--including those rejected earlier this year in Santa Clarita and Pasadena.

Wessell was a flamboyant but “very detail-oriented man” who was “excellent at what he did,” said Marlee Lauffer, director of community relations for Newhall Land & Farming Co., a key opponent of the Santa Clarita slow-growth measure. “In many people’s opinion, certainly mine, he’s the dean of grass-roots politics.”

Wessell’s adversaries were not always so admiring. One supporter of the Pasadena growth control law, repealed by a campaign guided by Wessell, said it was the victim of “a smear campaign.” And after real estate interests rallied from far behind to defeat an Orange County slow-growth measure in 1988, a bitter leader of the slow-growth forces called Wessell “a consummate political liar.”

But Wessell, who described the Orange County victory as “one of my finer moments,” said he never lied in a campaign.

“Once you do, you lose the confidence of the voters and undermine your whole campaign,” he said. But, he added: “there’s no rule that says you have to represent everybody’s point of view.”

Among Wessell’s most striking tactics was the mass production of realistic-looking tabloid newspapers stuffed with favorable news about embattled clients. His first such effort--the West Covina Chronicle--in 1981 sought to defuse opposition to the BKK Corp. landfill there.

In 1984, Wessell produced a few issues of the Santa Clarita Valley Chronicle to polish the image of Space Ordnance Systems--a now-defunct defense contractor then under attack over pollution.

Later, Wessell introduced the California Sanitation News to tout the benefits of the Sunshine Canyon landfill, the trash dump above Granada Hills run by his client, Browning-Ferris Industries. Some residents near the dump spoofed the gambit with the Unsanitary News, which contained satirical stories about visitors to the dump from distant states and countries.

Wessell was “a very bright man,” said BFI Vice President Les Bittenson, who described him as a friend as well a business associate. He said Wessell “had an outstanding capability of being able to size up a situation involving . . . community reaction and come up with some very positive ways of getting messages across to the people.”

Wessell’s involvement with BFI also led to a libel suit against him by City Councilman Hal Bernson, a dump opponent who accused BFI of compiling and leaking a dossier with damaging information on alleged irregularities in his travel expenses. However, Bernson’s lawsuit against BFI, Bittenson, Wessell and another political consultant was dismissed by a judge earlier this year.

Wessell is survived by his wife, Toni, daughters Kate, Leslie and Lynette, son Scott, a sister and a granddaughter.

Viewing is scheduled from 5 to 8 p.m. today, with funeral services to be held at 3:45 p.m. Wednesday in the Hillside Chapel, Rose Hills Mortuary, Whittier.

Librarian Joan Wolff contributed to this story.