O.C. Supervisor Will Not Seek Reelection : Politics: William Steiner is last board member to fall victim to county’s financial woes. ‘The bankruptcy has just cast a cloud over everything,’ he says.

William G. Steiner, the last Orange County supervisor to succumb to political fallout of the county’s financial disaster, said Saturday that he will not seek reelection when his term ends and is shopping around for a new career.

For almost nine months, Steiner, 58, had resisted calls that he either resign, as former board Chairman Gaddi H. Vasquez did in August, or announce that he would not seek reelection, as Supervisor Roger R. Stanton did seven weeks ago.

But amid growing reports that Orange County leaders may soon be hit with civil complaints by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and the county grand jury, Steiner said he seriously considered quitting outright this week. But he said he has an obligation to voters to serve out his term, which expires at the end of December, 1998.

“I just hate coming to work, the pressure,” said Steiner, explaining his decision. “I love public service. But the bankruptcy has just cast a cloud over everything. I came to the board with the best of intentions. This has been a huge disappointment, obviously.”

In the wake of the county’s bankruptcy declaration Dec. 6, all the supervisors who remained on the board became the targets of relentless criticism for failing to head off the financial disaster. The other two supervisors had announced before the scandal broke that they were retiring from office and left at the end of last year.

With the departure of Vasquez in mid-September and Stanton’s announcement later that month that he too would step down when his term expired next year, Steiner was left as the sole supervisor spurning public calls for removal. His decision completes the kind of board sweep that many civic leaders said was needed to put the bankruptcy behind the county.

“I think this is an important part of the overall healing process that we need to go through in this county,” said Garden Grove City Councilman Mark Leyes. “He was the last piece of the puzzle--the last sitting supervisor.”

Steiner’s decision could potentially leave Orange County with as many as five new supervisors by 1999: In addition to Stanton’s departure, Supervisor Donald Saltarelli--who is serving out the remainder of Vasquez’s term--is not running for reelection. Of the board newcomers, Supervisor Marian Bergeson has long said she will not seek a second term, and Supervisor Jim Silva will be up for reelection.

The housecleaning has extended beyond the board. Former Treasurer Robert L. Citron, whose risky investment strategy caused $1.7 billion in investment losses and plunged the county into bankruptcy, has been replaced along with many others who played a role in the largest municipal bankruptcy in U. S. history.

Mark Baldassare, a professor of urban planning at UC Irvine, said the turmoil is going to usher in “a period of political instability in terms of county leadership.”

But William J. Popejoy, the county’s former chief executive officer, said Steiner’s decision ultimately will benefit the public.

“It’s in the best interest of the county to regain credibility, and that’s [what will happen] with a turnover of the people who were there when the county went bankrupt,” said Popejoy, a harsh critic of the board in the past. “But I feel sad that Bill was one of the people caught up in this thing. He’s a fine person.”

As criticism of the board intensified in recent months, Steiner said repeatedly that he would fight off any attempts to run him out of office. He defended himself in part by saying he had only been on the board less than two years when disaster struck and that he had raised questions privately about Citron’s investment practices.

But his opponents said that was a poor excuse and intended to revive a once-failed recall effort to seek Steiner’s ouster. They point out that Steiner never followed through on his plans to send a letter demanding details about the county’s financial dealings, in part because of pressure from Citron and others. Steiner admits he erred.

“Too much happened on Steiner’s watch for him to turn around and say that he was a newcomer to the board and didn’t know what was happening,” said Fullerton activist W. Snow Hume, whose first effort to recall Steiner foundered. “If he says he didn’t have enough information as a supervisor, than he was derelict in his duty and he should be gone.”

Steiner also gained enemies when he embraced Measure R--a proposed sales tax increase that was the linchpin of the county’s first plan to emerge from bankruptcy--after earlier stating that he would not support a tax increase. The measure was overwhelmingly defeated at the polls June 27, and county officials are now planning to resolve the bankruptcy by reallocating tax revenue, instead of imposing new taxes.

Steiner continued to say Saturday that he will never bow to a recall effort. Although he refused to rule out the possibility of leaving office before December, 1998, Steiner said it is his intention to complete his four-year term.

But he is already putting out feelers for the future, reaching out to contacts in Sacramento, Washington and in Orange County.

“There is life after this,” said Steiner, former executive director of the Orangewood Children’s Home for abused and neglected children. “I’m going to go back to what I love doing--and that’s working with children.”

Some were caught off guard by Steiner’s decision, while others wondered whether he was belatedly acknowledging what others have said for months--that the bankruptcy doomed the political careers of the supervisors who presided over the fiasco.

“I was very surprised to hear it,” said Bruce Whitaker, spokesman for the Committees of Correspondence, an anti-tax group that often takes the board to task. “He showed all the signs of trying to weather this thing.”

“I think this was inevitable,” said developer and Republican activist Buck Johns. “The size and scope of the debacle is a lot of baggage to carry into an election.”

Many, however, say the loss will be the county’s.

“It’s really a shame,” said Reed Royalty of the Orange County Taxpayers’ Assn., who says that Steiner has been held accountable unfairly for something he could hardly have prevented. “He has a lot of personal integrity and intelligence and an earnest desire to do good for his constituents.”

Stanton said he sympathizes with his colleague.

“There are a lot of mean-spirited people with an ax to grind,” the supervisor said, “and I think Bill is a victim of that.”