2 Resign From Taxpayer Group Over Ad Dispute

Two of three board members of the Ventura County Alliance of Taxpayers resigned Friday amid an increasingly nasty political dispute over newspaper ads arranged by Jere Robings, the group’s president and a candidate for county supervisor.

Fred Gage, chairman of the anti-tax advocacy group, announced Friday that he is stepping down rather than seeking Robings’ dismissal because the public flap has “damaged the image of the alliance irreparably.”

Gage helped Robings launch the fledgling anti-tax group last year after Robings was fired from his paid job as director of Ventura County Taxpayers Assn. Gage said he spent $7,000 to help set up the Alliance of Taxpayers, but wants nothing more to do with Robings or the 100-member organization.

“It’s in his lap,” Gage said. “It’s all Jere’s. Let him swing in the breeze.”

Robings, the Alliance of Taxpayers’ lone remaining board member, welcomed Gage’s resignation. Robings suggested that Gage may be disgruntled because he rejected Gage’s offer to help with his supervisorial campaign in exchange for a paid position in county government after the election. “I was repelled by it,” Robings said.

Gage heatedly denied the allegation, saying he doesn’t need a job because he already makes $100,000 a year running a communications company in Burbank.

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“I tell you the guy is way out in space,” Gage said. “That’s why I want to get out of (the alliance).”

Board member Dr. Michael Bailey also resigned.

The fight has centered around Robings’ unilateral decision to place political ads that sharply criticize the Board of Supervisors’ $50-million expansion of Ventura County Medical Center. The ads listed the Alliance of Taxpayers as sponsor and Robings has refused to name private individuals who he said paid for the ads.

The four full-page ads ran Sunday through Wednesday in a local paper. One of the ads was headlined, “Ventura County Taxpayers Deserve the Facts.”

Gage has said he and Bailey were not consulted about the ads, which slammed the Board of Supervisors for using “subterfuge and secrecy” to approve the hospital project and demanded “an end to the back room deals.”

“In the ads he’s criticizing secrecy and back room deals, and here he is coming along and saying he won’t tell who paid for it,” Gage said. “He’s doing exactly what he accuses the supervisors of doing.”

Robings said he promised anonymity to the individuals who paid for the ads. Furthermore, he said he distinguishes between the behavior of elected officials spending tax dollars and a private individual spending private money. “That’s comparing apples and oranges,” Robings said.

Robings said he has never consulted the two board members on positions he planned to take in written statements or in testimony before the board. He called Gage and Bailey “a paper board.”

The dispute leaves Robings without one of his strongest supporters. Gage resigned in protest from the Ventura County Taxpayers Assn. when Robings was fired. But now, Gage said, he empathizes with his former colleagues on Taxpayers Assn.’s board of directors and predicts the messy affair will hurt Robings’ election chances.

“I stood by him when they fired Jere from the Taxpayers Assn., and here he goes again,” Gage said. “It’s deja vu, all over again.”

In his letter of resignation, Bailey said his position on staff at the county hospital could present a conflict with Robings’ attack on the hospital’s building program.

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Robings said he has received dozens of calls from supporters who wanted to know how they could restructure the board to get rid of Gage and Bailey.

“I think, if they submit a letter of resignation, that is the most marvelous thing that could have happened,” Robings said.

Robings said he had not researched whether Gage and Bailey could have ousted him as president. He called it a “moot point,” because he plans to resign or take a leave of absence by February to concentrate on his campaign for the supervisor’s seat representing Port Hueneme and the Conejo Valley.