O.C. SUPERVISOR VASQUEZ STEPS DOWN : Family a Factor in Departure : Background: Even before bankruptcy, Vasquez wished to spend more time with his wife, Elaine, and son, Jason.

For Orange County Board of Supervisors Chairman Gaddi H. Vasquez, the wrenching decision to abandon his seat had more to do with a lanky dark-haired youth who once was a ball boy for the Los Angeles Rams than the aging former county treasurer whose investment gambles bankrupted the county.

Vasquez and those closest to him said Monday that the roots of his retirement stretch back more than a year--long before the fiscal fiasco that landed his face on national television and brought hundreds of critics out to hammer him at weekly board meetings.

But they said the largest municipal bankruptcy in U. S. history only exacerbated the personal turmoil Vasquez was feeling, as a lengthy and demanding career in public service ripped him away from his wife, Elaine, and 16-year-old son, Jason.

“I have a lifelong obligation to always be there for my son, in the same way that my parents were there for me. I am not going to shortchange him and be absent when he needs me,” Vasquez, 40, said in an interview Monday, hours after announcing he would step down Sept. 22 after more than eight years on the board.

“Simple math tells you, ‘You’ve been gone awhile, Dad,’ ” Vasquez said, noting that he commuted to Sacramento for two years before being appointed and then elected to the post of supervisor. “In a couple of years, if he gets his wish and gets to go off to college, I don’t want to sit on the porch somewhere and regret than I didn’t spend some real critical time with him.”

The son of a migrant worker turned minister, Vasquez said his decision came after months of pondering and consulting “faith, family and friends.”

Former employees and other friends said they never expected him to run for reelection when his term expired next year, and that they began to see signs of an early exit from office before as well as after the county’s Dec. 6 bankruptcy filing.

“The first two to three weeks, I watched my friend go through sleepless nights, spend every waking moment consumed by attempting to solve this situation,” recalled Orange Police Lt. Timm Browne, Vasquez’s partner when he was a cop. “The Sundays began to mount when they were going into the office, missing events with Jason, commitments to his son, commitments to his wife.”

Others began to wonder whether the strain would lead to a resignation announcement at Vasquez’s 40th birthday party Jan. 22, when about 40 friends gathered at Raffaello’s Italian restaurant in Orange.

At one point, the supervisor rose and gave a teary speech about Elaine.

“He spoke about his wife in a very emotional speech, how this whole episode has made their relationship so much closer, and brought them so much closer, and how his wife was responsible for helping him through this whole situation,” one guest remembered. “I left feeling like he really realized how much this had brought him away from his family and how much he missed his family.”

Nine days later, when an overflow crowd of 250 jammed the board’s first night meeting in recent county history, Elaine Vasquez told her husband, “Gaddi, you’re not running again,” according to Randy Smith, a lobbyist and close friend. The criticism “was so negative and brutal. She was going to protect him.”

In those first months, however, when political pundits and county gadflies alike were angrily demanding Vasquez’s resignation, he steadfastly refused even to commit to making this his last term.

It was June 14 when he announced he would not seek a third term, and another month passed before he informed Gov. Pete Wilson he would depart in September.

“I’ve had lots of people who have said to me, ‘If I were you, I would have left months ago, there’s no way I would have withstood the kind of pummeling that you’ve been taking,’ ” Vasquez said Monday. “When people were saying we should leave. . . . I stayed here. And I fought the fight. Many long nights. Endured it. Stayed here. Put the pieces together. And now I think the time is right.”

Vasquez would not say what events pushed him to this point, but others said the constant barrage of criticism from the public, intense media scrutiny and the failure of his proposed recovery plan all combined with the desire to for a better home life to trigger the resignation.

“Gaddi would definitely stay in the kitchen when the kitchen gets hot. He’s not afraid of confrontation or risk,” said Christine Diemer, executive director of the Orange County Building Industry Assn.

Recent newspaper articles have highlighted Vasquez’s failure to cut his salary as promised in the wake of the bankruptcy. Local activists have accused him of acting aloof and regal, abandoning his constituents, and abusing perks that come with the job. Observers have slammed him for being indecisive, failing to lead at the county’s most critical moment.

And, on June 27, voters overwhelmingly rejected the half-cent sales tax hike Vasquez had endorsed as a route out of the fiscal morass.

“To know Gaddi is to know that Gaddi, his whole life, his whole family, has been care-givers, never caretakers,” Browne said. “Gaddi felt that he’d given the best leadership in this crisis time that he knew how to provide. Finally he said, ‘You know, I don’t know what else I can give. I’ve given everything I can give. Maybe to give my position is the last act.’ ”

Browne was one of just a handful of close confidantes whom Vasquez told of his plans before the Monday announcement. The two men sat across a table one day shortly after the sales-tax vote, and Vasquez asked Browne’s advice.

“Gaddi looked at me and said, ‘You know, I’ve been doing some self-inspection. I find myself looking and saying, am I a productive person doing what I’m doing? Or would I be happier doing something else?’ ” Browne recalled. “I said, ‘Gaddi, these are questions only you can answer. You’re going to have to make the ultimate decision.’ I never gave Gaddi an answer to his question. I asked Gaddi to search himself for the answer.”

Smith the lobbyist said the days and weeks and months of tireless work being met with criticism instead of gratitude simply added up: “It was the death of a thousand cuts.”

Since he made his decision, friends said, the burden of the bankruptcy has finally begun to lift.

Jim Knapp, a former employee who was in town last week for a wedding and stopped by Vasquez’s office to chat, said “he seemed very at peace with himself and with his future.”

At an impromptu barbecue at Smith’s house Saturday evening with a dozen close friends, the sentiment was similar. News of Vasquez’s impending resignation had been plastered across the front page of The Times that morning; finally, he could relax.

“It was one of the best times we’ve ever had with Gaddi,” said Diemer, who was at the barbecue, along with county employees Lynne Fishel and Jeannie Reinhardt, and former Vasquez employees Doug and Shana Woodyard and Marty Zajic. “He is relieved. He’s happy. He’s upbeat. He’s sad because he’s leaving something he enjoyed, but he is ready to take on a new day.”