Insider Heads the Pack in the Race to Succeed Dana

It is a prized post, one of the most powerful elective offices in the state, and it’s up for grabs. It’s an open seat on the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors.

And it is the end of an era. After 16 years in office, Supervisor Deane Dana is retiring in December. So voters in his crescent-shaped coastal and southeast-area district have a chance to select a new face on the governing board of the nation’s biggest county government.

With little more than three weeks left before the March 26 primary election, the race has become a classic contest between a well-financed insider and underfinanced outsiders.

Fueled by special interest campaign contributions, Dana’s long-time political right-hand man, Donald Knabe, 52, has begun a final push with freeway billboards, street signs, cable television ads and campaign mailers.

Hard on his heels are two spirited rivals in a field of six candidates: former Rolling Hills Mayor Gordana Swanson, 60, who forced Dana into a runoff four years ago, and Long Beach Councilman Douglas Drummond, 58, making his first bid for higher office.

While attention is focused on those three, others in the race are Joel Lubin, an engineer for the California Public Utilities Commission; Norm Amjadi, an environmental health specialist, and Richard S. Markowski. None of the three has raised much money, and Markoswki is not actively campaigning. To avoid a runoff in November, the top finisher needs 50% of the vote plus one vote.

Knabe, a former Cerritos mayor, seeks to portray himself as an outsider who will “Stand Up for L.A.” and bring experienced new leadership to county government.

In fact, Knabe is the ultimate insider, a behind-the-scenes deal maker and candidate of the county’s political establishment who is running like an incumbent. His home away from home for the past 14 years has been the supervisors’ wood-paneled world on the eighth floor of the county’s Hall of Administration.

On the campaign trail, Knabe talks tough on crime, and promises to promote economic development and encourage new jobs, but generally steers clear of the minefield that is the county’s continuing fiscal crisis.

He tries to distance himself from decisions made by the supervisors that contributed to the budget crisis. “I know that . . . my opponents have blamed me for all the ills that have happened in the county, even though I’ve never had the opportunity to cast a vote yet on the Board of Supervisors,” Knabe told a recent luncheon gathering of Republican women at a Long Beach yacht club.

But Swanson and Drummond remind audiences that as Dana’s chief deputy since 1982, Knabe cannot escape involvement with the lavish spending, salary and pension increases, and mortgaging of county assets that occurred even as the county’s economic fortunes worsened in recent years.

“There has to be accountability and there has to be responsibility,” Swanson, who runs a paralegal placement business with her son, said at a campaign forum in Lakewood this week.

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Swanson and Drummond agree with Knabe that the county’s top priority should be law enforcement and making the streets of the sprawling 4th District safer. They too pledge to promote business and new jobs, but they don’t stop there. Both promise to put the county’s financial house in order by changing the way that county government does business.

Drummond, a retired Long Beach police commander, pledges to seriously cut upper levels of county management.

Swanson, in particular, is sharply critical of what she calls “bloated salaries” and vows to pursue a 20% pay cut for county workers earning more than $100,000 a year.

While the local economy sank into its worst recession since the Depression and the state diverted more than $1 billion in county property taxes to deal with its own fiscal problems, she said: “The county didn’t tighten its belt.”

County records show that in a seven-year period, Knabe’s base salary as Dana’s top deputy increased from $70,491 to $103,455 a year. The 46.7% pay raise granted by the supervisors under a performance-based pay system for top county workers was more than double the average 19.5% increase received by county workers in the same period from July 1, 1989, to July 1, 1995.

Knabe said he received virtually no pay increase since 1992 and called the comparison with county workers unfair because there was a major restructuring of top salaries during the period.

He opposes an across-the-board pay reduction, noting that most county employees earning more than $100,000 are doctors in the health system, attorneys or prosecutors.

In recent weeks, Swanson complained bitterly that Knabe was still on the county payroll and demanded that he take time off while campaigning. Knabe has since agreed to do so.

Although sure to be overshadowed as the Republican presidential campaign reaches California, the outcome of this struggle for supervisor will have a powerful impact on the direction of county government for years to come.

Although the post is officially nonpartisan, Democrats Gloria Molina, Yvonne Brathwaite Burke and Zev Yaroslavsky control three of the five board seats.

Dana and Board Chairman Mike Antonovich, who is running for a fifth term against a little-known challenger, are the most senior members. They are the last of a Republican trio that ran county government during the 1980s.

That era came to a close after a federal judge ruled that the board had intentionally discriminated against Latinos by diluting their voting strength in the redrawing of supervisorial district boundaries. The landmark decision led to Republican Pete Schabarum’s retirement from the board and opened the door to Democratic control with Molina’s election in 1991.

The outcome of the race for Dana’s seat will not change the balance of power on the board. Although there are more Democrats than Republicans in the district, which hugs the coast from Marina del Rey to Long Beach before reaching inland as far as Diamond Bar, it tends to elect Republicans.

So Knabe, Swanson and Drummond are making the rounds of Republican clubs. In that congenial atmosphere, they generally avoid sharp personal attacks.

The real combat in the making of the next supervisor will come in mailers and press releases.

Ironically, Knabe’s commanding lead in fund raising may prove to be both a blessing and a curse. He has raised almost $1.3 million since Dana announced that he would not seek reelection and endorsed his top aide in 1994.

Knabe still had $289,229 on hand Feb. 10 at the close of the latest reporting period--more than Swanson or Drummond have raised since the race began.

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With the help of Dana’s own campaign funds, which have paid for slate cards and other expenses, Knabe is assured of having the most money and ability to reach voters when it counts.

But his list of major campaign contributors reads like a Who’s Who of special interests that do business with the county--from labor unions to land developers, ambulance companies to trash haulers, Metro Rail contractors to road builders.

And Swanson, whose sharp attacks on Dana’s record forced him into an expensive runoff campaign four years ago, is mounting a similar assault on Knabe and his fund raising.

“It is scandalous that the very people who get special favors worth millions of dollars from county government are the ones funding Don Knabe’s campaign,” Swanson said. “In any situation, except a political campaign, these gifts would be called bribes.”

Knabe called that accusation “absurd” and questioned whether Swanson would see her contributors in the same way.

“The most difficult part of the campaign is asking people to invest in you,” Knabe said, adding: “No one has ever tried to compromise me.”

Drummond has weighed in with a campaign newspaper and an editorial cartoon that shows a cash-laden dump truck pouring money into a pit as Dana and Knabe watch. “Do you want them to keep doing it?” Drummond asks voters.

Although he was opposed to contribution limits when they were on the ballot in Long Beach, Drummond said he would possibly consider backing a $2,500 limit for county candidates. He said he is bothered by Knabe’s biggest contribution, $40,000 from the union representing county probation officers.

Swanson has called for a $1,000 limit on campaign contributions to minimize special-interest influence in county races. The largest contributor to Swanson’s campaign is the National Women’s Political Caucus, which has given her more than $5,000. To date, her campaign has been financed primarily by a $150,000 loan from her husband.

Knabe said he would consider a possible limit on the amount that could be spent in a county race, but declined to take a position on a specific contribution limit, saying that he is still studying the issue. “I have to raise the money to get my message out,” he said.

Unlike campaigns in major California cities and congressional, senatorial, and presidential campaigns, there are no limits on what an individual or group can give to candidates for the county’s offices.

Drummond has tapped traditional sources of contributions to Long Beach city officials, including those doing business with the city.

When it comes to the county’s budget problems, all three candidates take a different tack.

“I will make the changes and do the trimming, make the cuts that are necessary to get the county back in good order,” Drummond said.

Swanson takes aim at mismanagement and waste. “We need to cut expenditures, cut waste and bring a balanced budget,” Swanson said.

Knabe says the county government is undergoing a major restructuring and needs to balance its budget.

All three oppose tax increases and agree that public safety should be the highest budget priority.

Knabe is relying heavily on the endorsement of Sheriff Sherman Block and a host of law enforcement organizations to underscore his commitment to fighting crime.

Drummond calls for streamlining and consolidating various elements of the county’s criminal justice system and is sharply critical of the county for eliminating deputy sheriff positions and building modern jails that it cannot open for lack of operating funds.

Swanson said the savings from reducing salaries should be directed first to bolstering the Sheriff’s Department.