Bare-Knuckle Politics Finally Reach Auditor’s Race

County Auditor-Controller Tom Mahon is the first to admit he’s not much of a politician.

His reelection campaign slogan is “Tom Mahon: an auditor, not a politician,” and he likes to argue that the job he now holds should not be the subject of election-year squabbling.

But Mahon is not kidding himself. The 73-year-old former Ojai Chevrolet dealer knows he is in the fight of his life against Camarillo businessman Stephen Maulhardt in the June election.

And he is well aware that the auditor-controller’s post has become a political football, with some county supervisors and elected leaders supporting him and others backing Maulhardt.

Maulhardt has been on the offensive from the get-go, questioning Mahon’s ethical standards and why he has not conducted more audits of county departments or offered more suggestions on how to improve their fiscal management. He promises to be more of a “people’s auditor,” a financial watchdog beholden to no one but taxpayers.

Mahon, who feels his record of financial guidance speaks for itself, said he is put off by the not-so-subtle suggestions that he is not honorable--though he understands that political barbs and accusations come with the job.

“This has turned into the kind of race which, quite frankly, I’m not used to,” Mahon said. “Maulhardt gives every implication that this office is run poorly. I’m sorry to see it, because these types of ministerial offices should not be the subject of mudslinging.”

The race for auditor is one of the few contested positions in county government this June.

Dist. Atty. Michael Bradbury is running unopposed once again, and Chief Deputy Sheriff Bob Brooks is unchallenged in his bid to replace retiring Sheriff Larry Carpenter. Treasurer-Tax Collector Hal Pittman and County Clerk Richard Dean are also running unchallenged.

That leaves the assessor’s position, where seven candidates are vying to replace retiring Assessor Glenn Gray; the county superintendent of schools post, where incumbent Charles Weis is facing a challenge from Camarillo educator Wayne Edmonds, in only the second race for the seat since county officials began keeping records in the early part of this century; and the auditor’s race.

The elections are nonpartisan.

In the auditor’s contest, Mahon is relying heavily on his experience to sway voters in his favor.

Mahon was first appointed to the job by the Board of Supervisors in 1993, after 23 years working in the auditor’s office. The auditor’s duties include monitoring county revenues and expenditures, conducting department audits, preparing the county payroll and budget, and supervising a staff of more than 60 employees.

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Mahon has been endorsed by Bradbury, county Supervisors John Flynn and Susan Lacey, and the Service Employees International Union, which represents most county employees.

A West Point graduate whose Ojai car dealership went bankrupt in the 1960s, Mahon vows to continue his trademark financial pessimism if reelected. His cautious outlook has helped Ventura County remain in good standing with Wall Street by maintaining a high credit rating, he said.

Now that the economy has turned around, Mahon believes county leaders need to replenish county reserve funds drained during the recession, not budget new programs.

“We can go no further,” Mahon said. “We have gone as far as we can go and operate in a sound financial manner. I don’t want to sound like the world is coming to an end, but we have to be cautious. If we spend the money now, what are we going to do when things go bad?”

Mahon, however, has taken a lot of heat recently for some of the people he has chosen to help with his campaigns. Pete Pedroff, director of the General Services Agency, and attorney Ed Lacey, husband of Supervisor Lacey, are among those who have worked on Mahon’s past or present reelection drives. Some see those relationships as a potential conflict of interest.

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“If people observing you feel there is a conflict of interest, you should do everything to avoid it,” Maulhardt said. “I don’t feel he has done a good job of that, to say the least.”

Flynn said Mahon’s record speaks for itself.

“He’s never shown any favoritism,” Flynn said. “He’s a straight arrow.”

A former accountant with the Big Six firm of Deloitte & Touche, Maulhardt, 50, has spent the last few years tending to his family’s Maulhardt Industrial Center in northeast Oxnard after working as treasurer of USA Petroleum Co.

The family struggled trying to lease out the center when the recession hit earlier this decade, and sold some parcels at auction after seriously falling behind on their property taxes and assessments. The remaining lots are leased out now, Maulhardt said, and he can focus on other things.

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Maulhardt has been endorsed by Supervisor Frank Schillo, state Sen. Cathie Wright (R-Simi Valley), taxpayer advocate Jere Robings, and a host of city council members from Oxnard, Moorpark, Camarillo, Port Hueneme and Ventura.

He advocates modernizing the county payroll into a direct deposit system for employees and conducting benchmark evaluations of county departments to see if they can operate more efficiently.

Schillo, explaining his support for Maulhardt, said, “We are not going to have any more money, so we need creative leadership. A good auditor can help.”

Assessor’s Race a Crowded Field

In contrast to the two-man auditor’s contest, the race for county assessor features seven candidates that include current or former assessor’s office employees from Ventura, Santa Barbara and Los Angeles counties, private property appraisers, a county lawyer and a local mayor.

The assessor’s race probably will be decided in a November runoff election, since no one candidate is expected to garner a majority of votes in the June primary.

The assessor’s office conducts reviews of properties to determine their worth and, subsequently, how much their owners have to pay in property taxes.

Assessor’s tax specialist James Dodd of Ventura, endorsed by outgoing Assessor Gray and his predecessor, Jack Waterman, is the in-house candidate for the job. Dodd, 44, handles assessment appeals for the office and believes he is best suited to handle the upcoming process of reassessing 70,000 properties whose property tax rates were lowered during the recession.

He supports upgrading equipment in the technologically impaired office, which, for example, still cannot digitally scan parcel maps into a computer system, resulting in labor-intensive and time-consuming work.

“The assessor’s office is going to have to make some quantum leaps to modernize,” Dodd said. “The other candidates are talking about Internet access for the public and those things, but I believe there are more basic needs.”

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Dan Goodwin got his start appraising property in the assessor’s office as an 18-year-old Ventura College student. Now the owner of his own appraisal business, Goodwin, a 46-year-old Ventura resident, believes he has the best mix of public and private experience of any candidate.

He believes the assessor needs to become much more publicly active, explaining the functions of his office to community groups, hosting seminars on assessment issues--and thereby saving his staff from having to field dozens of calls from property owners.

“It’s kind of a dream for me, a boy-makes-good kind of story,” Goodwin said of his candidacy. “When you start out at a place, you always think back to that place and ask, ‘How would the assessor’s office have handled this?’ ”

A Los Angeles County assessor’s employee specializing in such large commercial properties as Universal Studios and Magic Mountain, Des Kester of Thousand Oaks believes he can whip the county assessor’s office into shape.

Kester, 54, believes the assessor has done a terrible job of fighting for his budget in the competitive climate that takes place among departments during the budget process, and that skilled employees are overworked and underpaid as a result.

He believes an assessor should never be in the spotlight.

“If you hear about the assessor as a taxpayer, it’s usually something bad,” Kester said. “Besides, there is way too much work to do to go around talking to people. Someone tried that in L.A., and it was a horrible failure.”

Assistant County Counsel Larry Matheney is looking to take more of a leadership role after 24 years of working as an attorney. The 51-year-old Ventura resident says his knowledge of property tax law makes him a perfect fit for assessor, despite his lack of appraisal experience.

Matheney also believes in taking more of a public role as assessor. Part of that, he said, is making information more accessible to the public, on the Internet and in the office itself.

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“To put something on the Web, you don’t need a lot of money--all you need is someone under 30,” Matheney quipped. “I have a Web site now, and for the benefit of Mr. Stratton, I put in a link to the government center.”

Matheney was making a reference to Simi Valley Mayor Greg Stratton, who is looking to land the assessor’s job after 19 years on the Simi Valley City Council.

Stratton, 51, does not shy away from the fact that he has no experience in the position--a flaw that scuttled his candidacy for county auditor in 1994, when he was tossed off the ballot for failing to meet a state requirement.

Indeed, he argues that his outsider status makes him the perfect candidate to reform a stagnant bureaucracy. He also points out that his three-decade career as a computer software engineer would help him automate the office.

“I got a lot of calls from people who said this is a great opportunity for you to clean up what we feel is the worst-run office in the county,” Stratton said. “We run a lean and mean operation in Simi Valley. I don’t see the county running that type of ship.”

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As an income tax consultant who represents taxpayers against the Internal Revenue Service, Charles R. Taylor believes he has the best background to serve county residents as auditor--even if he lacks experience in the field.

Taylor, a 54-year-old Thousand Oaks resident, supports improving the working methods of the assessor’s office and making information more easily accessible to the public. He would also like to use public buildings in the east county to distribute information.

“I’ve represented taxpayers,” Taylor said. “I know how frustrating it can be to be fighting the government.”

Roy Villa believes he has the most experience for the job, hands down, ranging from his work in the Ventura and Santa Barbara county assessor’s offices to his experience with financial institutions and his own private consulting firm.

Villa, a 49-year-old Camarillo resident, wants to educate the public about the increasing possibility of rising property taxes before complaints come in from surprised residents. He also believes the assessor should be much more active in working with state leaders to correct flaws in tax laws.

“Right now, it takes an angry taxpayer to call their local assemblyman and complain about the assessor’s office to change the law, and that shouldn’t be,” Villa said. “I will be more proactive in that area.”

Two Vying for Superintendent

In the two-man race for county superintendent of schools, the most significant aspect of the campaign might be the fact there is a campaign at all.

Bruce Bradley, the county’s elections chief, said the last race for the job in 1994 was the only one he could locate any records for.

It may actually be the second time since the county was incorporated in 1872 that the post was contested. The position has traditionally been handed down from the outgoing superintendent to his chief assistant through appointment.

Incumbent Charles Weis, who was appointed superintendent in 1993 after serving as assistant superintendent, believes his track record guiding county schools will win over voters. He points to the improved performance of most county schools since he was elected to the position in 1994 as proof that he has helped local school officials bolster the quality of education.

Weis, a 47-year-old Moorpark resident with more than 25 years of experience as a school psychologist, administrator and private consultant, advocates more magnet schools to lure bright students into their fields of interest early.

He also believes there is a need for more satellite community campuses to educate troubled students who, for whatever reason, are not able to attend standard classes. He is a proponent of bilingual education programs, arguing that if they are administered correctly, research indicates they are far more successful in educating immigrant students than other approaches.

“Schools are doing pretty well,” Weis said. “The reason I’m running is, we need to do even better. We’re doing well with the top tier of students. Now we need to do better with the lower half.”

Challenger Wayne Edmonds, the personnel director for the Oxnard Union High School District, said he does not differ much with Weis on many issues. But there is one area where the 50-year-old Camarillo resident vows to be very different from Weis: his relationship to the elected county Board of Education.

Edmonds contends that Weis has needlessly politicized the superintendent’s position and has fueled controversies on the county school board instead of looking to help put an end to them. Edmonds was referring to Weis’ past clashes with a conservative majority of the school board over various policies.

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He is opposed to bilingual education programs, arguing that a more traditional strategy of immersing students into English as quickly as possible is ultimately more beneficial. And he is also concerned that county school officials are not doing enough to work with “at-risk” youths, thereby costing taxpayers more money when some of those young people enter the criminal justice system.

“I’m very concerned about gang violence, and one of the best ways to fight that is to improve the job skills of young people,” Edmonds said. “It just makes a lot of sense to do more for that population, because you’re going to pay more later if you don’t.”

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County Superintendent of Schools

Two candidates are competing for county superintendent of schools, incumbent Charles Weis and challenger Wayne Edmonds. The superintendent is responsible for overseeing schools for juvenile offenders and for the handicapped as well as the budgets of the county’s 20 school districts.

Wayne Edmonds

Age: 50

Residence: Camarillo

Occupation: Director of personnel, Oxnard Union High School District

Education: Bachelor’s degree in history from Cal State Long Beach, a master’s degree in counseling and guidance from California Lutheran University

Background: Born in Santa Paula, Edmonds is a lifelong Ventura County resident who has worked in Oxnard schools for more than two decades as a special-education teacher, school psychologist, adult summer school assistant director and personnel director. He has also coached basketball and served as president of the Tri-Counties Assn. of the Developmentally Disabled.

Issues: Edmonds says county programs to assist troubled youths are good but need to be strengthened. He is opposed to bilingual education programs and believes incumbent Charles Weis has needlessly politicized the superintendent of schools office, causing divisiveness.

Charles Weis

Age: 47

Residence: Moorpark

Occupation: County superintendent of schools

Education: Bachelor’s degree in psychology from UCLA, master’s degree in school psychology from Cal State Northridge, doctorate in education from UC Santa Barbara

Background: Served as independent educational consultant in Fillmore from 1973 to 1980. Joined Fillmore Unified School District staff in 1980 and served as high school and elementary school principal and assistant superintendent. Appointed assistant superintendent of curriculum and instruction for county schools office in 1990. Appointed superintendent in 1993.

Issues: Weis says Ventura County schools are on the right track, but need more magnet school programs and community schools for troubled students. He is in favor of bilingual education programs, and says he has established strong working ties with all local school superintendents.

County Auditor-Controller

Two candidates are competing in the race for county auditor-controller, incumbent Tom Mahon and Camarillo businessman Stephen Maulhardt. The auditor monitors county revenues and expenditures, conducts departmental audits, prepares the county’s payroll and supervises a staff of more than five dozen.

Thomas O. Mahon

Age: 73

Residence: Ojai

Occupation: County auditor-controller

Education: Graduated from U.S. Military Academy at West Point with emphasis on math and science; attended U.S. Naval Postgraduate School, Annapolis; master’s of business administration from New York University

Background: Mahon worked for oil companies in New York and Mexico before moving to Ojai and purchasing a Chevrolet dealership there. After the dealership went bankrupt, Mahon came to work in the auditor-controller’s office as an accountant in 1970 and has been there since.

Issues: Mahon says his refusal to politicize the auditor-controller’s office is one of his most important traits. He vows to continue saving taxpayers money by ensuring the county maintains a good bond rating. Mahon believes the county auditing staff needs a bigger budget for continuing education.

Stephen J. Maulhardt

Age: 50

Residence: Camarillo

Occupation: Accountant and businessman

Education: Bachelor’s degree in business administration from Menlo College School of Business

Background: A Certified Public Accountant, Maulhardt has worked for the Big Six firm of Deloitte & Touche. He was also treasurer for USA Petroleum Co. Maulhardt has served on the board of the Oxnard Chamber of Commerce, the St. John’s Regional Medical Center in Oxnard and the county Taxpayers Assn.

Issues: Maulhardt says Mahon has worked in the auditor-controller’s office too long, and a fresh perspective is long overdue. He vows to perform more internal audits of county departments as well as “benchmark” evaluations. He wants to modernize the county payroll to give employees direct deposit of their paychecks.

County Assessor

Seven candidates are vying for the job of county assessor. The assessor’s office conducts reviews of county properties to determine their worth, and subsequently, how much their owners have to pay in property taxes.

James Dodd

Age: 44

Residence: Ventura

Occupation: Assessor’s tax specialist

Education: Bachelor’s degree in political science from Cal Poly San Luis Obispo, law degree from California Western University

Background: A property tax attorney, Dodd has been working in the assessor’s office since 1979, starting as an appraiser analyst following Proposition 13. He now supervises a staff of 15 and handles appeals of property tax assessments for the office.

Issues: About 70,000 properties need to be reassessed now that the real estate market has rebounded from the recession. Dodd believes he has the best experience of any candidate to oversee that and other assessor duties. He is also supportive of continuing to automate the office.

Dan Goodwin

Age: 46

Residence: Ventura

Occupation: Chief appraiser, Goodwin & Co.

Education: Associate’s degree in real estate from Ventura College, certified by the Appraisal Institute

Background: Goodwin worked in the county assessor’s office at age 18 while he was going to college. He went into the private sector eight years later in 1977, working for several financial firms before starting his own business in 1983. He is a former president of the county Appraisal Institute.

Issues: Goodwin believes the assessor needs to be much more of a public figure, and he vows to hold more informational seminars throughout the county. He favors more educational training for staff members along with technological upgrades. He would like to open a satellite office in the east county.

Des Kester

Age: 54

Residence: Thousand Oaks

Occupation: Appraiser specialist for Los Angeles County assessor’s office

Education: Bachelor’s degree in math from Cal State Los Angeles, master’s in business administration from National University in San Diego

Background: A former real estate broker and math teacher in Los Angeles, Kester works in the major properties division of the Los Angeles County assessor’s office, handling such properties as Universal Studios and Magic Mountain. He has coached youth basketball, football and softball.

Issues: Kester says the assessor’s staff is underpaid and under-equipped compared to other counties, and he would press the Board of Supervisors for more money if elected. He believes in automating more assessor procedures. Kester believes an assessor should keep as low a public profile as possible.

Larry Matheney

Age: 51

Residence: Ventura

Occupation: Assistant Ventura County counsel

Education: Associate’s degree in liberal arts from Ventura College, bachelor’s degree in business administration from Cal State Northridge, law degree from Southwestern University

Background: A property tax expert who has advised the assessor’s office for more than a decade, Matheney has been an assistant county counsel since 1985. A former Navy reservist, Matheney served 10 years as a Ventura Port District commissioner.

Issues: Matheney argues his knowledge of property tax law compensates for his lack of property appraisal experience. He believes recent assessors have not fought enough for their share of county budget dollars. He vows to do more public relations and outreach and place more assessment information online.

Greg Stratton

Age: 51

Residence: Simi Valley

Occupation: Simi Valley mayor, software engineering manager

Education: Bachelor’s degree in physics from UCLA, master’s in business administration from California Lutheran University

Background: A 19-year Simi Valley City Council veteran, Stratton has worked in the aerospace industry for three decades, including civilian work for both Navy bases in the county. Since 1983, he has worked in Northridge for what is now Litton Guidance and Control Systems. Stratton is a former Jaycees state vice president.

Issues: Stratton says the assessor’s office has been poorly run and needs an overhaul. He also believes it needs outside leadership. He vows to upgrade technology and working methods and place more information on the Internet. He wants to open a satellite office in the east county.

Charles R. Taylor

Age: 54

Residence: Thousand Oaks

Occupation: Tax consultant

Education: Bachelor’s degree in business administration and finance from Pepperdine University, master’s degree in business administration from Pepperdine University

Background: A former corporate controller and vice president of finance who has worked for numerous companies, Taylor has been operating his own business, Charles Taylor Tax and Business Services, since 1994. He is a member of the Thousand Oaks Mayor’s Business Roundtable and Optimists Club.

Issues: Taylor argues his business management experience makes up for his lack of property appraisal knowledge. He believes in providing more information to the public more quickly, possibly online, but also in other public buildings around the county. He supports increased automation.

Roy A. Villa

Age: 49

Residence: Camarillo

Occupation: Real property appraiser

Education: Bachelor’s degree in business administration from Cal State Northridge, master’s degree in public administration from Pepperdine University, advanced appraiser certification from state Board of Equalization

Background: Villa worked in the assessor’s office from 1974 to 1978 before working for several financial institutions. In 1986, he began his own real estate appraisal and consulting business. For the past two years, he has also worked for the Santa Barbara assessor’s office.

Issues: Villa says he has more broad-based assessment experience than any other candidate. He vows to conduct more public outreach, particularly about the possibility of rising property taxes. He also vows to compete harder for funding with other departments.