ELECTIONS / PREVIEW : Supervisor Hopefuls Still Pounding the Pavement : Politics: Final weekend finds quartet continuing bids for grass-roots support. Results could shape public policy for years.

Ventura County supervisorial candidates spent the final weekend of the campaign doing what they’ve been doing for weeks: knocking on doors, handing out flyers and dialing up voters with pleas for support.

The four candidates for two open seats on the Board of Supervisors kept a grueling, grin-and-bear-it schedule that saw them racing back and forth across their districts, trying to contact as many voters as possible.

Trudi Loh, a candidate in the 2nd Supervisorial District, kicked things off early Saturday with a marathon door-to-door campaign that began in Port Hueneme, moved on to Oxnard and ended at the far east end of the county in Oak Park. The district also includes most of Thousand Oaks.

“We’re looking real good going into Tuesday,” Loh told half a dozen Oxnard firefighters who volunteered their day off to help her campaign. “It’s a real tight race.”

But it was clear after the first few doors Loh knocked on that there was a lot of work left to do.

“Let me read this over,” a Port Hueneme resident said after Loh handed him a flyer. “I’m still not familiar with all the stuff on the ballot.”

Loh’s opponent, Thousand Oaks Councilman Frank Schillo, started Saturday by hand-delivering campaign flyers in Oak Park before moving on to Thousand Oaks. Dressed in blue jeans, red sweater and a blue-and-white “Vote for Schillo” cap, the candidate said it was his 62nd day of knocking on doors.

“This is the only way to do it,” Schillo said. “This is what you build a campaign on, walking. People want to see the guy they’re voting for.”

After spending a minute or two talking with residents on their doorsteps, Schillo made sure to mark either a yes, no or undecided on his note pad. For the most part, it was a good day, with dozens of residents promising to vote for him.

But there were some houses with Loh campaign signs planted in the lawn that Schillo bypassed altogether.

“Why should I talk to them? They’ve already made up their mind,” he said, before racing onto the next residence.

Candidates in the 4th Supervisorial District, which covers Simi Valley and Moorpark, were also busy pounding the pavement over the weekend.

On Sunday, candidate Judy Mikels hit the streets in Simi Valley, armed with campaign flyers and complimentary note pads. Mikels, a local city councilwoman, said she has been walking precincts for several weeks and is still surprised by some of the responses.

“Sure, I’ll vote for you,” one man said after glancing over Mikels’ flyer. “Where do you vote?”

While this type of campaigning can be discouraging at times, Mikels said she believes that going door-to-door is still the best way to reach voters and planned to do it again today.

Scott Montgomery, a Moorpark councilman who said he has done “two pairs of shoes worth” of campaign walking, also spent the day distributing flyers in Simi Valley. He said he was pleased with responses from voters, but he also sensed that many are tired of all the campaigning.

“You can just tell people are ready to have the election over with,” he said. “This is hard to do on Sundays. I know I’m disturbing people when I ring their doorbells.”

Although only about 60% of the county’s registered voters are expected to make it to the polls Tuesday, local officials say the results of the election could shape public policy for years to come.

The two new supervisors, officials say, may determine whether a commercial airport is developed at Point Mugu Naval Air Weapons Station and settle a longstanding dispute over a proposed landfill at Weldon Canyon, between Ventura and Ojai.

In addition, they will have to grapple with a projected $40-million to $50-million county budget deficit, new air quality regulations, rising health care costs for county employees and a proposal to train county firefighters as paramedics.

Supervisor Maria VanderKolk, who chose to step down from her 2nd District post after one term, said whoever wins the two supervisorial seats will quickly learn how difficult the job is, particularly with a shrinking county budget.

“A lot of promises have been made that can’t be kept,” she said.

VanderKolk, a political newcomer who won a surprise victory over then-Supervisor Madge L. Schaefer in 1990, said she learned a lot about compromise.

After running on a pro-environment platform opposing the giant Ahmanson Ranch housing project in the east county, VanderKolk helped engineer a deal to allow the development in exchange for thousands of acres of public parkland. The result, however, was that she lost the support of many of those who helped elect her.

“I learned,” VanderKolk said of her job. “It’s much harder than I thought.”

Voters won’t have trouble distinguishing between the two candidates competing for VanderKolk’s job. Schillo and Loh hold divergent views on most major issues.

Schillo supports the proposed landfill at Weldon Canyon, Loh opposes it, preferring to explore other options for trash disposal, including possibly shipping it elsewhere by rail.

Schillo strongly favors a plan to establish a commercial airport at Point Mugu to attract new businesses, while Loh has expressed concern that a facility could spark development on farms around the military base.

On the other hand, Loh, who is supported by county firefighters, favors a proposal to train them as paramedics to improve emergency response. She said she believes that such a program could be phased in gradually and eventually pay for itself.

Schillo, who has received contributions from one of the largest ambulance companies in the county, said he believes that private ambulance companies are doing a good job and that it would be too costly for the county to provide such service.

The paramedic issue has also split the candidates in the 4th Supervisorial District for similar reasons. Montgomery supports a county program; Mikels is not convinced that it is needed.

Both, however, favor development of a new landfill at Weldon Canyon. They say they are concerned that if a new dump is not built, the Simi Valley Landfill will bear the burden for the entire county.

Faced with the increasing demand for services and dwindling revenues, all of the candidates agree that cutting the county’s operating costs will be among their top priorities. Each has proposed plans for the county to work more closely with cities to share services, equipment and supplies.

Schillo, for example, has proposed that the county Fire Department perform some building and safety services now done by the city of Thousand Oaks. Loh has suggested consolidating county library services, perhaps even closing some facilities.

“We need to find a better and more efficient way to get materials out to people,” Loh said, adding that the county may want to consider charging for the use of some library materials or computer-access services. “There aren’t going to be any easy choices.”

In addition to the two supervisorial races, county voters will also decide the race for auditor-controller. Incumbent Thomas O. Mahon, who was appointed auditor last year by the Board of Supervisors, is running against accountant Richard Morrisset of Oxnard.

Mahon, who served as assistant auditor for more than 20 years before assuming the top job, says his experience gives him an edge in the race.

But Morrisset says Mahon has been in the job so long that he has become part of the county bureaucracy. Moreover, he says Mahon cannot be impartial because he has accepted campaign contributions from county employees and officials, all of whom are subject to county audits.

Mahon says the contributions only represent the confidence people have in his ability to do his job well.

Here is a closer look at the state and federal races that Ventura County voters will face Tuesday:

State Senate District 18

Assemblyman Jack O’Connell (D-Carpinteria) is competing against former San Luis Obispo County Supervisor Steve MacElvaine for an open seat in the 18th California Senate District that includes Ventura, Santa Paula and Ojai.

MacElvaine has sought to paint O’Connell as a tax-and-spend Democrat, who as speaker pro tem of the Assembly must carry a large part of the blame for the state’s economic problems. O’Connell, who was recently successful in passing legislation to ban offshore drilling, has hammered MacElvaine for his support of oil drilling along the district’s coastline while a member of the California Coastal Commission.

Assembly District 38

Assemblywoman Paula L. Boland (R-Granada Hills) is being challenged by 19-year-old Chatsworth resident Josh Arce in a district that includes Simi Valley and Fillmore.

Arce, a political science major at UCLA, has attacked Boland for her antiabortion stance and for excessive partisanship, contributing to the gridlock in Sacramento. Boland’s campaign has mostly ignored Arce, focusing mainly on the laws she helped pass to increase penalties for rapists and child molesters.

Assembly District 37

Assemblyman Nao Takasugi (R-Oxnard) faces former Oxnard City Councilwoman Dorothy Maron in a district that covers most of Thousand Oaks, Moorpark, Port Hueneme and Oxnard.

Maron has attacked Takasugi for doing little to curb crime and joblessness. However, Takasugi said he helped reform workers’ compensation laws and was instrumental in getting last year’s budget out on schedule for the first time in seven years.

Congressional District 23

Rep. Elton Gallegly (R-Simi Valley) is being challenged by Democrat Kevin Ready, a Santa Barbara County deputy counsel, in the district that covers a tiny piece of Santa Barbara County and all of Ventura County except most of Thousand Oaks.

Ready is a mainstream Democrat whose political philosophy sharply contrasts with Gallegly’s conservative views. Ready favors abortion rights, universal health care and opposes Proposition 187, the state initiative that would ban most government services to illegal immigrants.

Gallegly opposes abortion in most cases, wants to keep the government out of health care and, as a leading voice against illegal immigration, supports Proposition 187.

Congressional District 24

Rep. Anthony C. Beilenson (D-Woodland Hills), an 18-year incumbent, faces what could be the toughest challenge of his political life in a race against Republican Richard Sybert, Gov. Pete Wilson’s former director of planning and research.

Sybert, who has put more than $400,000 of his own money into the million-dollar race, has attacked Beilenson for supporting the Clinton Administration’s crime bill, budget deficit-reduction plan and health care proposal.

Beilenson, on the other hand, has sought to paint Sybert as a carpetbagger because he moved into the district only last year for the express purpose of running for Congress. Beilenson, who has received no campaign contributions from political action committees, has also described Sybert in campaign literature as “PAC-Man” for accepting at least $60,000 from such sources.