O.C. IN BANKRUPTCY: THE MEASURE R ELECTION : Popejoy Relished Fight if Not Result : Vigil: CEO awaited outcome with foreboding. He repeats assurances that he plans to stay on the job.
The message came at 2:41 p.m. It was Mrs. Miller, voter, calling from Tustin for Orange County Chief Executive Officer William J. Popejoy.
“RE: Measure R. Voting tonight,” Popejoy’s assistant had written on one of umpteen little blue slips she passes to her boss daily. “Needs to talk to you before she votes. Please call within the next 30 minutes.”
Popejoy, 57, the former savings and loan executive who had volunteered for the bankrupt county’s top job 137 days before, diligently called back Tuesday afternoon. But Mrs. Miller was gone, just an answering machine at the other end.
As the hours waned before the fate of the sales tax hike he had so fervently pushed would be known, Popejoy could not be sure whether Mrs. Miller--or the rest of the county’s 2.5 million residents--would hear his message in time.
“I have a feeling of foreboding. A lot of hard effort, and to end up with the thing not passing. . . .” Popejoy sighed as he waited for the clock to tick away the time until the polls would close and the results would be available. “At the same time, I’ve got a feeling of just resolution. What I wanted, what we wanted, was for the people of the county to make the decision. I hope I have the ability to accept it, whatever it is.
“I’ve had almost a lifetime of successes,” added the man who left an early retirement of tennis and travel to thrust himself into the center of the worst municipal bankruptcy in U.S. history. “It is more satisfying, at times, to be involved in a chase than to get to the finish line.”
On Tuesday, perhaps the most crucial day yet in the county’s attempt to escape from its fiasco, Popejoy finally stopped racing toward that line. It was the slowest day yet since he had taken over the third floor of the Hall of Administration in early February, passed with just a handful of meetings, a few phone calls, and a long, revolving session of reminiscences with his closest advisers.
As always, the Newport Beach millionaire kept chuckling.
“I thought I’d say a prayer first,” Popejoy joked as he mistakenly ducked into the sanctuary instead of the voting booth as he cast his ballot at Temple Bat Yam about 7:30 a.m. “What do you think?” he called out from under the curtain to Paul S. Nussbaum, his chief trouble-shooter. “Which way should I go?”
By 8 a.m., Popejoy was ensconced in the daily business of county government, reviewing mountains of bills from attorneys and accountants, hesitating before signing away the remaining dollars in county coffers. The next hour brought a television interview, then a depressing conference call where Wall Street investors thumbed their noses at the county’s latest bond offering, then another TV crew.
As he chatted on the phone throughout the day, Popejoy played with a stuffed frog someone had sent him during his first days on the job, a Popsicle stick stuck to its chest with the joke: “What does a bankrupt frog say? ‘Broak, broak.’ ” Often, he would often stand and gaze out his office window, across the plaza to the treasurer’s office, the former digs of Robert L. Citron, the man credited with causing the mess Popejoy is trying to mop up.
During his tenure, Popejoy has enjoyed soaring popularity with residents and scored high in several opinion polls.
But he has had increasing trouble with those inside the Hall of Administration, particularly his bosses on the fifth floor. In April, he angered the three supervisors by saying he thought Measure R would fare better if they promised not to run for reelection. And in recent weeks, his battles with Supervisor Roger R. Stanton have escalated into a war.
When Stanton announced his opposition to the tax increase, Popejoy called for his resignation. Then, last week, he took a further, drastic step, seeking Stanton’s ouster through the grand jury under an obscure state law.
Now, whispers about Popejoy’s own job security have grown louder. Supervisor Jim Silva has joined Stanton in calling for his resignation.
Popejoy insisted again Tuesday that he will not quit just because the tax he created and campaigned for died. But he admitted that he could be fired if Stanton and Silva collect two more votes. In addition, he said that if he feels in the coming days that voters intended to reject him along with Measure R, he will leave voluntarily.
There are, however, things he must do before he could leave. For example, there’s the challenge from Sheriff Brad Gates, who has been his closest adviser, for a $100 tennis match (unless they can turn the event into a fund-raiser for the county).
Much of Tuesday, indeed, was spent in good-natured ribbing with Gates and Nussbaum, the banker who will leave county employ this week.
“Look at all those people who have lost elections before . . . and come back,” prodded Gates after a lunch of tuna and turkey sandwiches, potato chips and Diet Coke.
“You know what all those people have in common?” Popejoy quipped, signature smile on his face. “They’re dead.”
Hours later, soon after the polls closed, Popejoy arrived at Antonello Ristorante in Santa Ana to a standing ovation. He hugged his wife, Nancy, who was waiting at a table with their son, Perry, and 9-year-old grandson, Nicholas.
Hearing the early absentee results, Popejoy said, “I was in hopes it wouldn’t be that way. But it looks like our fears have been realized.” Then Popejoy put it in perspective.
“I’ve lost things a lot more important than Measure R in my life,” he said, clearly referring to his son who was killed in a car accident several years ago.
“This is important, but it’s not going to change the world. It’s important to be passionate about things that are worthwhile, and we’ve been that throughout this process. But there are people all over the world who would love to have our problems.”
