As Bergeson Looks Back, Many Are Looking Ahead

At 22 months, it was the shortest term of any person ever elected to the Orange County Board of Supervisors. But to Marian Bergeson it seemed much longer.

“It’s been a most eventful time,” Bergeson said, choosing her words carefully and with understatement during an interview Wednesday.

The 71-year-old politician announced this week that she will resign from the board next month to take a job as Gov. Pete Wilson’s top education advisor. She leaves the board--one of the most coveted elected posts in the county--with more than two years left in her term.

“I don’t feel bad about leaving now because if I were a quitter I would have left when things were really tough,” Bergeson said. “I would have left when people were throwing eggs at us and things were really nasty.”

During her stint on the board, the county wallowed in a $1.64-billion bankruptcy, recovered from financial ruin and grappled with some of the most controversial land-use issues in the county’s 107-year history. The board also tackled politically sensitive issues such as raising taxes, selling off county assets and reforming government to be more responsive.

Bergeson reflected on her accomplishments and dreams unfilled during her brief tenure with the post-bankruptcy Board of Supervisors. She also talked about her future and the challenges of reforming the state’s educational system.

“In all candor, the county has emerged from bankruptcy in a very positive way and I’m pleased at the progress that has been made under that very difficult scenario,” she said.

But she said she was disappointed that many of her proposals to reform county government had gone nowhere.

“Eventually I think real reforms will happen. But the timing wasn’t right,” Bergeson said. “People were still too hostile and angry over the bankruptcy for them to go anywhere.”

As news of the Bergeson’s resignation sunk in Wednesday, her fellow supervisors and colleagues at the Hall of Administration praised her efforts and said they will miss her when she actually steps down next month.

“She brought a certain level of maturity and stature to the board because of her long and outstanding record of public service,” said Supervisor William G. Steiner. “Even her critics seldom questioned her motives. Her contribution to the board, no matter how brief, will be missed.”

But even as people reflected on Bergeson’s contribution, many county observers will be looking ahead, trying to figure out who would be appointed to replace her as the 5th District representative.

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Steiner, who also has close ties to the governor, said he has been receiving numerous calls from people interested in the job.

“Lots of people are positioning themselves,” said Steiner, although he declined to identified them. “Some of the county’s biggest critics now seem very interested in serving on the board.”

Among the names said to be interested in succeeding Bergeson are: Mary Jane Forster, a San Juan Capistrano resident and member of the State Water Resources Control Board; Holly Veale, former San Clemente mayor and Bergeson aide; Laguna Niguel Mayor Patricia C. Bates; Assemblywoman Marilyn C. Brewer (R-Irvine); Thomas W. Wilson, Laguna Niguel councilman and chairman of the Orange County Fire Authority; former Irvine Mayor Sally Anne Sheridan; Kevin Sloat, Bergeson’s former legislative chief of staff and currently the governor’s deputy chief of staff, and Gary L. Hausdorfer, former San Juan Capistrano councilman.

A spokesman for Wilson was noncommittal Wednesday on who the governor might choose for Bergeson’s supervisorial seat, or even when the decision might come.

“We’re setting no deadline for the announcement of the new supervisor,” said Sean Walsh. “It is our hope to secure an individual as quickly as possible.”

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Walsh also said that the governor’s appointments unit, which will gather the names of potential replacements and narrow them down to a short list for final inspection by Wilson himself, has yet to begin serious consideration. “The collection process hasn’t really even begun,” he said.

But if recent history is any indication, Wilson will probably have an announcement sometime in the next two months, perhaps even before the Board of Supervisors decides the crucial question of whether to pursue construction of an international airport at the El Toro Marine Corps Air Station, which the military will leave by 1999.

It took Wilson 10 weeks to name a replacement for former Supervisor Gaddi H. Vasquez, who announced his resignation in August 1995 amid growing pressure over the bankruptcy. But when Supervisor Don R. Roth stepped down during a scandal in February 1993, Wilson named a replacement 10 days later.

Bergeson said Wednesday that she plans to take an active role in helping find her replacement. She said she is gathering names of prospective candidates and plans to interview them, forwarding her recommendations to the governor.

She said she believes her replacement should reside in South County to give the majority of her district a strong voice on the board. Bergeson, who lives in Newport Beach, said a South County supervisor would help restore the “trust” of the constituents in the district who are fighting board attempts to put an international airport at the El Toro base and a maximum-security jail at the James A. Musick Branch Jail in Irvine.

During her time on the board, Bergeson was often the lone voice trying to protect the interests of South County. She was also frequently the only advocate of radical governmental reforms.

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Since she joined the board, Bergeson pushed an ambitious list of initiatives including a county charter plan that would have reduced the duties of county government, created an elected county “mayor” and made serving on the Board of Supervisors a part-time job.

Bergeson also favored televising board meetings so the public could more easily monitor government business. None of her colleagues supported the proposal.

“I’ve found it frustrating at times, but you learn to grit your teeth and bear it,” Bergeson said of her clashes with other board members. “I never shied away from controversy. It seems like it always surrounds me without me asking for it. I’m a risk-taker, I guess.”

But she said she wasn’t taking a risk this week when she accepted the governor’s appointment as education advisor, returning to a field that the former Newport-Mesa teacher and school board member considers her “calling” in life.