Activist Takes More Heat for Tax Ads : Politics: Chairman of alliance protests unauthorized use of group’s name, but Robings claims support of membership.

Two days after being sharply rebuked by Ventura County Supervisor Maria VanderKolk, anti-tax activist and supervisorial candidate H. Jere Robings has come under increasing fire for arranging newspaper ads attacking county “politicians” and “bureaucrats.”

Fred Gage, chairman of the Ventura County Alliance of Taxpayers, accused Robings on Thursday of running the full-page ads without the backing of the group’s board of directors.

He said that Robings, who sits on the three-member board and is the group’s president, did not consult the other board members and has refused to disclose who paid for the ads, which listed the taxpayers alliance as sponsor.

“Up to this point, the board has had no quarrel with Jere,” Gage said. “When these ads came out, I was dumbfounded.

“We don’t want to hurt Jere,” he added. “But at the same time, to my way of thinking, he not only shot himself in the foot, but he shot himself in the head.”

Robings, who created the alliance after being fired as president of the Ventura County Taxpayers Assn., responded by saying he did not need to consult his colleagues on the board before running the ads. Despite the criticism, Robings said he still has strong support from the group’s general membership.

“If 100 people in the membership are supportive and one is not, I’m not too terribly worried about that,” Robings said.

“As the president of the alliance, I’ve been doing everything for the alliance,” he said. “I don’t run my newsletter by anybody. I take on issues all the time without consulting anybody. . . . It’s basically a one-man deal.”

Robings said Gage paid to file papers with the state registering the alliance as a nonprofit corporation but has otherwise not played an active role in the group.

The ads were purchased by “people who have supported the alliance,” Robings said. He would not name the individuals or disclose how much was paid for the ads, which he said were designed by a company in Orange County.

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The alliance’s board includes Gage, Robings and Dr. Mike Bailey, whose office said Thursday that he had no comment on the matter. Gage has been one of Robings’ strongest supporters; he resigned from the board of the taxpayers association to protest Robings’ firing.

Gage called an emergency board meeting Thursday night. But just before the meeting, Robings called and said he would not make it, according to Paul Blatz, the group’s attorney.

After 45 minutes of discussion, Blatz said, the two board members decided to send Robings a letter asking for another meeting with him.

Earlier in the day, Gage said he called the meeting to question Robings about the ads. Although he stopped short of saying he might call for Robings’ resignation, Gage said: “If he doesn’t tell us, we turn to our attorney and we say, ‘What is the next step?’ ”

Robings said it does not matter to him what the board does because he was already planning to take a leave of absence or resign to concentrate on his campaign for county supervisor.

“I can’t continue as a candidate and as a director of the alliance,” he said. “Those plans are already well in the making.”

Earlier this month, Robings, 61, announced his plans to run for the Ventura County supervisor’s seat representing the Conejo Valley and Port Hueneme. At a news conference in front of the County Government Center, he pledged to clean up government waste and called for a re-examination of a proposal to expand the Ventura County Medical Center.

The ads that sparked the controversy were critical of the $50-million expansion project, which includes a five-story parking garage, an outpatient clinic, a mental health facility and a new office for the medical examiner’s staff.

The four full-page ads ran Sunday through Wednesday in a local newspaper. One titled “Ventura Taxpayer Update No. 3” contained the boldface headline “The Medical Center Expansion: A $50 Million Boondoggle.”

VanderKolk, who lashed out at Robings at the start of Tuesday’s meeting of the Board of Supervisors, said she found that ad the most offensive.

“The hospital is serving the poor and underprivileged and doing a good job at it,” she said Thursday. “It hurts me personally to see the integrity of the hospital questioned when it’s such an incredible institution.”

Robings has suggested in the past that the county consider contracting with private hospitals to expand medical services rather than going forward with the new buildings.

VanderKolk also said the ads were typical of Robings’ past criticism of the board.

“Jere tends to put things in very black-and-white terms,” she said. “He tends to be dramatic and extreme in the types of things he says.”

Lindsay Nielson, former president of the Ventura County Taxpayers Assn., said he believes the controversy over the ads mirrors the circumstances that led to Robings’ dismissal from the larger watchdog group.

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“These advertisements, which I think are a thinly veiled political advertisement for Mr. Robings, were neither authorized nor paid for by his board,” Nielson said. “He’s a very political animal, and this is consistent with the reason the Ventura County Taxpayers Assn. let him go.”

Robings has denied that the ads were politically motivated or had anything to do with his campaign for VanderKolk’s seat on the Board of Supervisors. Robings said he left his name off the ads so they would not appear as personal advertisements.

“I was raising these issues long before I announced for the office,” he said.

At least two members of the Ventura County Alliance of Taxpayers said Thursday that they still support Robings and were unaware of Gage’s criticisms.

Said Oxnard resident Pat Plew: “I know Jere to be a man of honor and a man of purpose.”