Mayoral Race a Partisan Fight

How much does it matter to Anaheim residents that their mayor--elected in a nonpartisan race--is a Republican or a Democrat?

Councilman Bob Zemel is betting that at least a majority of voters care a great deal.

The race certainly matters to the Republican Party. The county and the state GOP issued a rare joint endorsement for the nonpartisan seat, urging Republican donors to give generously to Zemel.

“You have to focus on an issue that will be significant, and party affiliation is,” said Frank Caterinicchio, Zemel’s political consultant. “That may be the only thing that voters know to distinguish the two.”

But Mayor Tom Daly enjoys strong bipartisan support, and 10 Republicans--business leaders and former mayors--sent a letter this month to Republican donors urging them to back Daly and reject partisanship in the local race.

The office is a “nonpartisan office and rightfully so,” said the letter signed by former Anaheim Mayor Ben Bay, former Disneyland President Jack Lindquist and other GOP members. “Is there a Democrat or Republican approach to making a road work?”

The Republicans have cause to be nervous. Daly is one of the Democratic Party’s rising stars in Orange County and one of three pivotal Democratic mayors of the county’s largest cities--joining Miguel A. Pulido Jr. in Santa Ana and Bruce Broadwater in Garden Grove.

Anaheim also holds a key position in Democrats’ hopes to gain state and federal legislative seats in the increasingly diverse central county region.

County GOP Chairman Thomas A. Fuentes and state Chairman Michael Schroeder said Zemel’s election is critical not only to stop Daly from positioning himself for higher office but to boost GOP voter turnout in the county’s central cities.

Turnout is pivotal, they said, to assure the election of Atty. Gen. Dan Lungren as governor. Lungren, who heads the GOP ticket statewide, recently joined the county’s Republican lawmakers and Gov. Pete Wilson in endorsing Zemel.

At a special 50th birthday roast last week to benefit the county GOP, Fuentes told guests that his single birthday wish was that Daly was no longer mayor of Anaheim. He raised $6,000 for Zemel that night.

Daly’s supporters contend that Fuentes’ cheerleading for Zemel is more than just partisan interest: Fuentes works for Councilman Tom Tait’s engineering company. Tait was appointed, with Zemel’s help, to fill a council vacancy in 1995, and has become a voting ally of Zemel’s on the council.

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Zemel, an Anaheim councilman for four years, is a vice president at Fidelity National Financial Inc., the nation’s fourth-largest title insurance company. Fidelity’s chairman, William P. Foley II, is an active Republican donor and major backer of Insurance Commissioner Chuck Quackenbush.

So far, his campaign appeal has focused on why Daly has been bad for the city and the Republican Party. Daly has concentrated on his accomplishments during six years as mayor. If he’s reelected, it will be Daly’s last term.

Lost in the fray is a third candidate for mayor, Gustave “Gus” Bode, 74, a Navy veteran and milk deliverer who has run five times for City Council. Bode doesn’t plan to campaign and accepts no campaign contributions.

The high-stakes competition has stoked campaign donations. Through Sept. 30, Zemel collected $90,000 and Daly reported $83,000. Zemel had $46,000 left to spend; Daly had $60,000 remaining.

Zemel said Friday that he has raised significantly more money since Oct. 1 but declined to release the figures, saying he didn’t want Daly’s campaign to benefit from the information before the campaign reports are received by the city clerk. Daly’s report also was unavailable.

Bay, who served as mayor for two of his 10 years on the Anaheim council, has a 4-by-8 poster supporting Daly on his garage door--next to the same-sized poster backing Republican former congressman Robert K. Dornan.

“I think Tom Daly’s the best man,” Bay said. “Just because he’s a Democrat doesn’t mean I won’t support him. I voted for a lot of people on Zemel’s endorsement list but I don’t support him [because] Tom’s done an excellent job.”

Bay said Zemel lost support last year when he pushed to hire a special prosecutor to investigate Daly’s involvement with a political committee that aided two Daly-backed Republican council candidates in 1996. That committee formed after a GOP-backed group began pumping money into a rival candidate’s campaign.

The special prosecutor, Ravi Mehta, ultimately was removed from the case by the full council and a judge. Charges that he brought against Daly were dropped; two other candidates settled their charges by paying $10,000 fines.

The entire effort cost Anaheim taxpayers about $400,000.

Zemel’s supporters insist it was Daly who thrust partisanship into Anaheim when he went to work for Rep. Loretta Sanchez, a longtime friend who ran unsuccessfully for City Council in 1994. She was elected to Congress in 1996 to replace Dornan. Daly was paid $15,000 to organize Sanchez’s office.

By accepting the part-time job, Daly crossed the line of nonpartisanship, Zemel said. Yet he said he believes a person’s political philosophy is essential for evaluating a candidate’s approach to government spending.

“It’s illustrated in the way Daly and I approach problems in the city,” he said. “Daly wants tax increases. I vote against them and I want to cut wasteful spending. That’s a big difference in terms of how citizens of Anaheim want their local government to run.”

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When Anaheim negotiated with Disney and the California Angels for expansion at Disneyland and Anaheim Stadium and included city improvements, Zemel voted against the projects as $30-million government giveaways. Daly helped negotiate the deals and voted for them.

“I liken this to the same blind faith that led to investing in the county pool,” he said, criticizing Daly for his vote to borrow money in 1994 to invest in an Orange County investment pool. The pool collapsed in 1994, pushing the county into its historic bankruptcy.

Zemel’s campaign message focuses on three issues: Daly’s Democratic activities, his support for a half-cent boost in the sales tax in 1995 to help cover losses from the county’s bankruptcy, and his support for what amounted to a $7-million utility tax.

Daly said the city doesn’t have a utility tax, but said he voted to pass the 2.85% “public benefit fee” on to consumers. He said the city’s electricity rates already are 15% lower than in other cities. Zemel contends the city should have absorbed the cost.

Though he regularly votes against many city needs, Zemel has reversed course and voted yes for special-interest projects, even championing them, Daly said. In one instance, Zemel voted in favor of allowing a long-term operating permit for a controversial steel salvage yard run by George Adams of Villa Park, who owns Adams Steel Co. and is a Zemel campaign contributor.

Last week, Adams mailed a letter to Anaheim business owners complaining that Daly attempted to win the Anaheim Chamber of Commerce endorsement by stacking the membership’s advisory votes. The chamber’s political action committee, which Adams chairs, threw out the advisory ballot and chose its endorsement instead by committee. Zemel got the nod.

Daly, who voted against Adams’ permit, said the two men are so close that it “clearly taints the endorsement.”

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Both sides come armed to the Nov. 3 election with polls bolstering their hopes. Daly’s poll, now two weeks old, showed him leading, 55% to 16%, over Zemel. Zemel’s poll also showed Daly leading, but by a much smaller margin: 36% for Daly to 22% for Zemel.

Daly said his poll asked voters if they would change their minds knowing he was a Democrat. His support dropped a few points while Zemel gained a few points, he said.

Daly said this issue, in the end, “is just not that big a deal with people.”

“Democrat, Republican, independent, citizens in general want to know what problems you intend to solve,” he said.

Zemel consultant Caterinicchio said voters in his survey who initially favored Daly changed their minds after learning of Daly’s support for Democrats and his council votes.

As the longshot candidate in the race, Bode said he has no patience for either political party--he’s registered with the English Bulldog Party--or for Zemel and Daly, whom he calls “Barnum and Bailey.”

“Why should you put a jerk in office just because of how they’re registered?” he said.

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Anaheim Mayoral Race

Tom Daly

First elected to the Anaheim City Council in 1988. He is a business consultant and states his occupation as being mayor. Daly was born and raised in Anaheim and has lived there all his life.

Born: July 26, 1954

Residence: Anaheim

Family: Daughter, 11; son, 8

Education: Graduate of Anaheim High School and Harvard University

Career highlights: Aide to former Supervisor Ralph Clark; served on the Anaheim Union High School District Board of Trustees, the Anaheim Library Board and the Anaheim City Council; elected mayor in 1992; reelected in 1994 to a four-year term

Issues: Continue revitalization of downtown core; add police officers and increase community policing; open more police stations in West Anaheim and Anaheim Hills

Bob Zemel

First elected to the Anaheim City Council in 1994. Zemel is vice president of public affairs for Fidelity National Financial Inc. and formerly owned a real-estate business and a mortgage company in Anaheim.

Born: April 2, 1953

Residence: Anaheim Hills

Family: Married with grown son and daughter; daughter, 9

Education: Graduated Pacifica High School in Garden Grove; attended Golden West College in Huntington Beach

Career highlights: Served on Anaheim Planning Commission, 1991; spearheaded effort to place an INS agent in Anaheim Jail; chosen Republican Local Elected Official of the Year in 1996

Issues: Improve public safety; oppose tax increases; deport illegal immigrants arrested for crimes; eliminate 2.85% electricity fee

Source: Individual candidates; Researched by JEAN O. PASCO / Los Angeles Times