Stanton’s Failed Power Play Sows Tension : Politics: He floated the idea of holding onto his chairmanship of the Board of Supervisors, angering successor Wieder.

When Orange County Board of Supervisors Chairman Roger R. Stanton hands over the gavel for one of the county’s most powerful posts to Harriett M. Wieder next week, the ceremony will no doubt include the customary exchange of plaudits and pleasantries between the two politicians.

This, after all, is how the county supervisors have conducted themselves publicly for years, with open disagreements unusual among the five Republican members and non-unanimous votes rarer still.

But this united front may mask tensions on the board that have recently come to light over a power play by Stanton last year to hold onto the board chairmanship through 1993, effectively blocking Wieder from taking over the post next week and presiding over county government.

Any talk of bypassing the normal rotation for the county board’s top seat collapsed by mid-1992 under political pressure, officials familiar with the issue say, but the incident nonetheless offers insight into the type of behind-the-scenes county machinations that are seldom aired in public.

Wieder and several other county officials who corroborated her account maintained that Stanton floated the idea last year of serving an unusual second term as chairman, despite a board tradition of rotating the post. At one point, they say, he sought legal advice on whether this could be done.

“It was all done sub rosa,” Wieder said.

Wieder said that after she first heard reports last year about Stanton’s apparent attempts to retain the chairmanship, she called Stanton to confront him about the issue and warn him off. Stanton denied to Wieder that he had discussed the idea, but Wieder said in a recent interview that she was unconvinced.

“You just don’t buck me. He should’ve known better,” Wieder said.

Stanton initially declined to discuss the issue. “You want to start some (trouble), go to hell,” he told a reporter. “End of conversation.”

He later denied any attempt to circumvent the normal rotation of the board chairmanship, saying this was a “rumor” that had grown out of an unrelated issue over his service as chairman of the Orange County Transportation Authority.

Stanton acknowledged having asked the county counsel for an opinion on how the chairmanship rotation worked, but said this was done only to avoid possible problems when he served as chairman of both the Board of Supervisors and OCTA in the first half of 1992. Any suggestion that he had sought to retain the board chairmanship was “bull,” he said.

At stake was one of the most powerful positions in local politics.

The chairman of the Board of Supervisors wields significant clout, because that person generally serves as both the board’s liaison to the public and its first line of contact with staff members on an array of key policy issues.

Issues have often been settled out of the public eye before.

In early 1990, for instance, the board abruptly canceled a scheduled vote on a politically sensitive proposal to mandate automated sprinklers in all new homes, an idea that had been opposed by developers.

The district attorney’s office is investigating whether home improvements that Supervisor Don R. Roth received from a local developer may have influenced the decision to kill the matter.

But there is another reason that officials have cited for the deletion of the matter: a desire to avoid a public airing of volatile debate between county building officials, who opposed the sprinkler ordinance, and county fire personnel, who argued it would save lives.

Three years later, the issue has not returned to the board for a vote and has never been debated publicly.

“Anyone who’s ever been to a supervisors’ meeting knows most issues are handled in a very perfunctory manner. There has already been a consensus reached” before the meetings, said William R. Mitchell, president of the Orange County chapter of Common Cause, a government watchdog group. “A lot of the decision-making happens outside the hearing room--beforehand.”

Indeed, the Board of Supervisors decides virtually all of the matters before it by a unanimous vote. There have been a few notable exceptions--such as whether to put a jail in Gypsum Canyon--but most of the board’s weekly meetings end without any contested items on the lengthy agendas.

Wieder, 72, drew the ire of some of her colleagues last year by publicly questioning the use of the board’s “consent calendar,” which allows supervisors to pass dozens of items en masse in a matter of seconds. But she makes no apologies now for her criticisms, and she says ensuring open government will be one of her top priorities as chairman.

“I think there is a perception that people are shut out,” Wieder said. “I think we take for granted that people know what we (on the board) know. The public doesn’t know or understand what it takes to serve them. . . . We are unknown. But without the county you would not have the courts, the jail and health care.”

Of all the issues facing the county this year--and those include jail overcrowding, budget cutbacks and transportation--Wieder has probably become most closely associated with health care. In September, Wieder joined Supervisor Gaddi H. Vasquez in support of a plan that would consolidate the health care of all 225,000 of the county’s poor, covered by Medi-Cal, into one system called OPTIMA (Orange Prevention, Treatment and Intervention Medical Assistance program).

During her chairmanship, Wieder said she plans to strongly support the plan, which promises less expensive medical treatment and would make participation more attractive to private physicians.

This will be Wieder’s third stint as chairman. Even before her run-in with Stanton over Tuesday’s handoff, Wieder’s chance to be chairman of the board also proved controversial in the early 1980s, when she was passed up for the post that she believed she had earned.

The issue was resolved after then-Supervisor Bruce Nestande stepped in to suggest that the board rotate its chairmanship each year among the five supervisors. The idea was adopted unanimously.

Since then, most supervisors have voiced strong support for the idea of maintaining the rotation.

Supervisor Thomas F. Riley said in an interview that he had also been told by a member of his staff some time in 1992 that Stanton was interested in serving a second term as chairman. The supervisor said he does not recall the details, but added: “The first time I heard about it, I said no.”

One source who demanded anonymity said that he was present at a discussion last spring between Stanton and another board member about the possibility of Stanton serving as chairman through 1993.

“There were hypothetical discussions about undoing the (chairmanship) rotation system,” one source said. “But there was a recognition that it was not going to be without controversy, and once it was looked at closely, it became clear that it was not going to go anywhere.”

Wieder said she understood that Stanton appeared to have justified the unusual idea of staying on for a second term as chairman by telling people that the ordinance authorizing the rotational system was to “expire” in 1992. (County regulations set out a rotation schedule through 1992, and continue indefinitely unless amended by the board.)

Wieder has found herself at odds with her colleagues perhaps more than any other supervisor.

The lone female supervisor, she has frequently chided the “boys” on the board. Her political differences with the Republican Establishment in Orange County grew more distinct last year when she supported President-elect Bill Clinton’s campaign and Superior Court Judge Judith Ryan’s unsuccessful congressional bid against U.S. Rep. Robert K. Dornan.

But despite past conflicts, Wieder said she does not expect any great tensions on the board this year. “We get along so well because we never see each other but once a week,” she said.