DANA POINT : Lloreda, 2 Others Lead in Fund Raising

With the City Council election less than a week away, Bill Shepherd, Harold R. Kaufman and incumbent Karen Lloreda lead all 12 candidates in raising campaign funds.

Shepherd, Kaufman and Lloreda raised $9,452, $9,010 and $8,322, respectively, as of last Friday, which was the latest deadline for filing campaign contribution reports.

Three of the five council seats are up for grabs in the race Tuesday.

Although the race is heated, fund raising is below that of other council campaigns in recent years.

But the latest financial statements also show the emergence of a new political action committee, a group called “Concerned Taxpayers of Dana Point including the M.H. Sherman Company & Chandis Securities Co.”

Newport Beach-based M.H. Sherman Co. and Pasadena-based Chandis Securities Co. are the owners of the 121-acre Dana Point Headlands peninsula, where a controversial $500-million development plan for a resort hotel and homes has emerged as the leading issue in the council election.

(Chandis Securities, a firm that oversees the financial holdings of the Chandler family, is a major stockholder in Times Mirror Co., which publishes the Los Angeles Times.)

The Concerned Taxpayers group was formed to help elect Shepherd, Kaufman and Lloreda, according to papers filed with the city clerk. The group has $8,000 in its treasury and has so far spent more than $6,000 on mailers for the three candidates, who support the Headlands development.

Many local political observers consider the fund-raising totals low for a council race in Dana Point. For example, in the 1990 race, council members Mike Eggers and Eileen Krause each raised about $25,000 for the campaign.

Eggers, a six-year council member who will step down next month, said the low fund raising reflects the poor economy and the candidates’ inability to raise money.

“Some candidates are just very poor fund-raisers,” said Eggers, an aide to Rep. Ron Packard (R-Oceanside). “They don’t know how to ask for a donation. The other thing is they are not motivating their supporters enough to write a check.”

After the three front-runners, the leading fund-raisers include Witold (Wit) Muller, $5,443; Ernest A. Nelson, $4,631, and Addison H. DeBoi, $4,073, according to the clerk’s records.

The next financial filing deadline is July 31, but if any person or committee makes an expenditure for a candidate of $1,000 or more between now and the election, it must be reported within 24 hours, City Clerk Sharon L. Waits said.