Sheriff, Deputies Union Back Long to Succeed Kildee

Ventura County Sheriff Larry Carpenter and the Sheriff’s Deputies Assn. announced their endorsement Thursday of supervisor candidate Kathy Long, giving her candidacy a major boost in a campaign against an opponent in the law enforcement field.

“I had to have the confidence of the person I’m supporting, and Kathy Long came across very strong as a person of integrity and honesty,” Carpenter said. “I would not support her if I didn’t believe she placed a high value on the same things that I do in the area of public safety.”

In addition to Carpenter and the deputies’ union, Long received support from Citizens for a Safe Ventura County, the county’s largest booster of public safety.

“Their unified endorsement is important to me personally as well as to my campaign,” Long said during an afternoon news conference. “I’m proud to have the support of the men and women who are out there on the streets every day putting their lives on the line.”

Long is competing against veteran Camarillo Councilman Mike Morgan in the race to replace retiring Supervisor Maggie Kildee, whose district includes Ojai, Fillmore, Santa Paula, Camarillo and portions of Thousand Oaks.

Carpenter’s endorsement in the nonpartisan race is especially significant considering that Morgan has served as a federal pretrial services officer and county probation officer for 25 years. Morgan and Carpenter are both Republicans; Long is a Democrat. What’s more, Carpenter has had some public--and pointed--disagreements with Long’s boss, Kildee, to whom Long is a top aide.

“Of course, it would be helpful to have the sheriff with me,” Morgan said. “It’s a big disappointment.”

Carpenter said Morgan was in “a different realm” of law enforcement, and that after meeting with both candidates he felt more comfortable with Long’s knowledge of his department and county budget matters.

“It obviously was not the overall deciding factor,” Carpenter said of Morgan’s public safety background.

Initially, the sheriff said he had planned to issue no endorsement. But after mulling it over, Carpenter said he felt an obligation to take a position because he lives in Fillmore.

“People were saying, ‘Well, sheriff, you live in the district, who are you voting for?’ And that got me thinking that I had to make a decision,” he said.

Although Carpenter had had bitter run-ins with Kildee over public safety budgets, he said Long is “her own person. I don’t think she should be shouldered with that Maggie-clone concept,” he said.

Carpenter also stressed that although Kildee did not support a local initiative funneling special sales tax money exclusively to his department and other public safety agencies, she has been a strong supporter on other issues.

“There obviously was a bitter disagreement between Maggie and I, but that was a very small slice of the pie,” he said. “Maggie has made a lot of good law enforcement decisions.”

Like Carpenter, Sgt. David Williams, president of the 750-member Ventura County Sheriff’s Deputies Assn., said neither Long’s party affiliation nor Morgan’s job was a factor in the union’s decision.

“We just looked for who we thought was the better person, who would do what they thought was right and listen to what we had to say,” he said.

For all of his professional experience in the field, Morgan has failed to win support from any law enforcement leaders or organizations in the county.

Indeed, Long has even picked up the support of the county’s Professional Peace Officers Assn., which includes deputy probation officers.

“I don’t know what to say,” Morgan said. “My background in law enforcement is there. It’s a good history.”

Although Dist. Atty. Michael D. Bradbury said he has no plans to endorse either candidate, he has made known his assessment of Morgan’s abilities.

In a sworn deposition last year, the district attorney said there was “no way” he could endorse the federal court pretrial officer.

“He’s not qualified, in my opinion,” Bradbury said. “He’s kind of a lightweight . . . politically, intellectually.”

Bradbury’s office and a federal Drug Enforcement Administration agent complained to Morgan’s superiors that Morgan had interfered with a 1992 homicide investigation. Detectives said he was overstepping his bounds as a pretrial officer by advising the widow not to talk to them until she called a lawyer. Morgan denied the allegations.

As for Bradbury’s comments, Morgan said that the district attorney has since apologized to him for making those statements. “I still consider myself a friend of Mike Bradbury,” he said.

Despite losing such key law enforcement endorsements, Morgan said he is undeterred and will push on with his campaign.

“I’m still going to fight as hard as I can,” he said. “Our team is not going to stop.”