Alternate Dole Delegates Are the Right Choices to Preserve ‘Party Unity’

At least two names--Jon Fleischman and Jo Ellen Allen--generated some surprise when the list of alternate Bob Dole delegates to the Republican National Convention was released last week.

Fleischman is an aide to state Sen. John R. Lewis (R-Orange) and president of the conservative California Republican Assembly. Allen is former statewide president of Phyllis Schlafly’s Eagle Forum. Both have been anything but active Dole supporters.

Fleischman was a Patrick J. Buchanan delegate and Allen had supported Sen. Phil Gramm (R-Texas).

Marty Wilson, Dole’s state campaign manager, said alternates such as Fleischman and Allen were included in the name of “party unity.”

“We don’t always agree with the positions John or [the CRA] take, nor does he always agree with others in the party, but the fact is he’s a team player,” Wilson said. “Once the wishes of the party become known, he’s on board.”

Wilson said Allen, a Corona del Mar resident, “certainly would be associated with the conservative element, but she’s also exceedingly loyal.”

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Consolidate or else: Push appears to be coming to shove on water district consolidation, a government streamlining issue that has been discussed for decades, with very little actual activity.

A group of South County districts released a study last week proposing to consolidate 22 districts into five larger districts and six city departments. Meanwhile, a bill authored by Assembly Speaker Curt Pringle (R-Garden Grove) that would merge all the county districts into one mega-agency was approved by the Assembly’s Appropriations Committee and is headed to the lower house’s floor.

John V. (Jack) Foley, general manager of Moulton Niguel Water District and chairman of the board of the powerful Metropolitan Water District of Southern California, which supplies water to districts from Ventura to the Mexican border, called Pringle’s bill “draconian.” But he praised the speaker for initiating some action.

“We’d better take the bull by the horns and do it by ourselves,” Foley said of consolidation.

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Rulers to rule? For 21 years, the metric system has inched its way into use in the United States. But now, Rep. Christopher Cox (R-Newport Beach) is pursuing legislation that the feds say would gum up the works of progress.

Cox says construction companies seeking federal contracts spend too much time and money converting their bids to metric numbers and the rules should be relaxed.

But the Clinton administration says Cox’s plan would aid only concrete block and electric light fixture producers, which haven’t yet made the switch, and would hurt other construction industries that already have converted to metric measurements. By any measure, they say, Cox’s bill is too broad.

Stay tuned as each side flexes its legislative muscle--the metric size of which is unknown.

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Battle lines drawn: There seems to be a tempest brewing over COG, the League of Cities’ proposed Council of Governments. The board would be made up of representatives from cities, the county, water districts and the league itself.

League officials have said COG would focus on making government more efficient by providing services in a more cost-effective manner, sharing costs between agencies and regional issues such as transportation and air quality. They stressed that the group would not take any powers from cities or special districts.

Several city councils have already voted to join COG, and the league has asked all agencies to consider the concept this month.

But opponents such as Garden Grove City Councilman Mark Leyes, however, say COG is “a new brand of suburban socialism.”

“I just don’t like it. It rubs me the wrong way,” Leyes said. “COG would be accountable to nobody but the league.”

The Orange County chapter of the Building Industry Assn. has asked councils to delay their votes on COG, not necessarily because it is against it, but because the league has not made its case yet, said Christine Diemer, executive director.

“We have been out of the loop,” Diemer said last week. “[The league] is basically assuming that we are somehow being represented. . . . That’s not the case. We don’t even have enough information yet to decide.”

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Gus on Dole: At least one prominent Republican cast some doubt last week on the decision of Bob Dole to resign from the Senate to devote all his energies on his run for the presidency. Gus A. Owen of Dana Point, the chairman emeritus of the Lincoln Club who Dole helped place on the Surface Transportation Board in Washington, said history has not been kind to those who have tried this before.

“I would hate to see him step down from the Senate,” said Owen by phone from Washington just minutes before Dole’s announcement. “Sen. Howard Baker of Tennessee did it and it turned into a mistake.”

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UPCOMING EVENTS

* Tuesday: South Orange County Congress of Republicans will hold a membership meeting at 7 p.m. Address and information: Bill Randall at (714) 544-2877 or Roger Hughes at (714) 839-1350.

* Wednesday: Secretary of State Bill Jones will be the guest speaker of the 400 Club of the Republican Party of Orange County from 5:30-7:30 p.m. Location or other information: (714) 556-8555.

* Thursday: A joint meeting of the Brea Republican Women and the La Habra Republican Women will be held at 11 a.m. at the Embassy Suites Hotel in Brea. Information: Betty Whiting at (714) 529-6338.

Compiled by Times staff writer Len Hall, with contributions from correspondent Shelby Grad and Meredith Cohn of States News Service.

Politics ’96 appears every Sunday. Items can be mailed to Politics ‘96, 1375 Sunflower Ave., Costa Mesa, CA 92626, or faxed to (714) 966-7711.