Spitzer Quick to Lead Conroy in Early Tallies

Deputy Dist. Atty. Todd Spitzer took a commanding early lead over Assemblyman Mickey Conroy (R-Orange), while Westminster Mayor Charles V. Smith and Garden Grove Councilman Mark Leyes were in a dead heat Tuesday in the races for the two seats on the county Board of Supervisors.

Spitzer, 35, who also is a member of the Brea Olinda Unified School District Board of Education, finished second to Conroy in the March primary for the county’s 3rd District seat. But his chances to upset the 68-year-old veteran assemblyman were buoyed in the past few months when he picked up some key endorsements in South County, including one from Mission Viejo Councilwoman Susan Withrow, who finished third in the primary, and another from the South Orange County Chambers of Commerce.

“I’m very cautiously optimistic,” said Spitzer, a tireless campaigner, from an election night party in Yorba Linda. “All I can do is wait and see if my message will carry the day.”

Smith, 64, a retired aerospace manager, and Leyes, 37, a government relations specialist for the Orange County Water District and a new convert to the Republican Party, exchanged the lead several times throughout the night. For much of the evening, less than a percentage point separated the two candidates for the 1st District seat.

“If we win this thing, it will be because of the precinct walking we did,” said Smith, a member of Westminster’s City Council for the past 12 years and the city’s mayor since 1988. “We didn’t have the money that Mark Leyes, did because he had the backing of the hard-core Republican Party. But we spent weeks and weeks walking precincts.”

Tuesday’s vote was the culmination of a grueling, yearlong campaign by the four finalists, who emerged from a field of 13 candidates in the March primary. Most of them began lining up in the post-bankruptcy turmoil of 1995, when 3rd District Supervisor Gaddi H. Vasquez resigned, and 1st District Supervisor Roger R. Stanton announced he would not seek reelection after 16 years on the board.

The importance of this year’s election was underscored in recent weeks by the announcement that 5th District Supervisor Marian Bergeson would leave to become Gov. Pete Wilson’s secretary of education. Wilson is expected to appoint a successor to her perhaps by next week.

“You will have an absolute new majority on the board, three new people,” said outgoing 3rd District Supervisor Don Saltarelli, who was appointed by Wilson to an interim post replacing Vasquez. “I’ll be watching with great interest.”

Several county officials predict the board’s newcomers, who will be seated on Jan. 6, won’t have the usual luxury of a honeymoon or an adjustment period. There are too many controversial issues on the horizon for next year, and the mood of the county electorate is too surly to allow much of a grace period, they say.

“The good news is you won the election. The bad news is you got the job,” said Gary L. Hausdorfer, a former mayor of San Juan Capistrano who is now working as a county consultant. “You’ve got the continuing problems of the bankruptcy, jails, airports, budget deficits and a lack of public confidence in the office. In general, the new supervisors will be managing a changing county bureaucracy at probably one of the most difficult times in the history of Orange County.”

Perhaps no issue will have greater importance, nor engender more controversy, than the proposal to build a private commercial, international airport at the El Toro Marine Corps Air Station when the military leaves by 1999. The current board is scheduled to vote on the airport next month, but no one expects the raging controversy to go away.

“They are going to have to implement whatever we decide in December,” said Saltarelli, whose district is widely split on the issue. The 3rd District sprawls from La Habra and Brea to the north, where many residents back an airport at El Toro, south through Mission Viejo and Lake Forest, where anti-airport sentiment reigns.

The airport controversy is perhaps less important in the more distant 1st District, which includes all of Fountain Valley and Westminster, and half of Garden Grove, two-thirds of Santa Ana and several unincorporated areas such as Midway City.

“You could make a real good case that we should continue this [airport] decision until the new board is seated, but we are paid here to vote on these issues,” Saltarelli said. “But even if an airport were approved, you will have at least a two- or three-year process for the details and to see whether it is feasible or not.”

The new board, which will include 2nd District Supervisor Jim Silva and 4th District Supervisor William G. Steiner, also will have to test a restructured and downsized county bureaucracy, which is expected to be unveiled later this month.

The new supervisors are entering an evolving era of county government, prompted by factors such as the incorporation of South County cities in recent years but most important the bankruptcy, said County Clerk-Recorder Gary L. Granville.

“They are coming into an altogether different world for a county supervisor. It’s a far different job even than it was when they filed their papers a year ago,” said Granville, who has been familiar with county politics since he was a reporter in 1972. “They now have far less authority, are involved in far fewer decisions and their influence as county leaders has waned. I’m not saying it’s an easier job, but it’s different.”

Other issues expected to be facing the new board next year include expansion of the James A. Musick Branch Jail, welfare reform, trial court funding, early budget preparation for the next fiscal year and the possibility of privatizing the county’s waste management system, said Jan Mittermeier, the county’s chief executive officer.