1999 Heralds Big Changes in O.C. Leadership

The new year brings the most sweeping turnover in county government in 30 years as the remainder of the most prominent bankruptcy-era officials move on to retirement or new jobs outside county government.

Leaving are Sheriff Brad Gates, retiring after 24 years in office and 38 years with the department; Dist. Atty. Mike Capizzi, another longtime employee elected in 1990; and Assessor Brad Jacobs, appointed in 1976 after his predecessor was convicted for campaign misdeeds.

Also moving on are Auditor-Controller Steve Lewis and Supervisor William G. Steiner, who took office in the 1980s and later beat attempts to remove them after the bankruptcy.

Succeeding the departees are a slew of faces familiar from government positions elsewhere. But they nonetheless promise to make their mark on the entrenched routines of a bureaucracy only now emerging from the 1994 financial collapse that drained $1.64 billion from governments countywide.

Among the new officials poised to guide the county into the next century:

* Sheriff-elect Michael Carona, the county marshal for nine years, who holds two master’s degrees in business and approaches government more like the chief executive of a corporation.

* Dist. Atty.-elect Anthony J. Rackauckas Jr., a former county prosecutor and Superior Court judge who has promised the most comprehensive changes to the operation of his new office, including eliminating an entire layer of middle management so more attorneys can handle courtroom work.

* Incoming Assessor Webster Guillory, chief assistant to Jacobs, who pledged to continue a history of independence that often found his departing boss at odds with the supervisors in office during his tenure.

* Incoming Auditor-Controller David Sundstrom, expected to restore confidence in the office after it was dragged into disrepute when supervisors blamed Lewis for not doing enough to warn them of the risky investments of former Treasurer Robert L. Citron. Sundstrom was hired in 1995 to head a newly created internal audit division yanked from under Lewis’ control.

* Supervisor-elect Cynthia Coad, a school board trustee from Anaheim, succeeding Steiner, who is leaving to become director of national programs for Childhelp USA in Scottsdale, Ariz. Steiner was a swing vote on several key issues that came before the board, from the mechanics of welfare reform to the conversion of the El Toro Marine Corps Air Station to a commercial airport.

3 Incumbents Remain

Of the eight county officials elected, only three incumbents remain in office: Supervisor Jim Silva, elected four years ago to the board; Clerk-Recorder Gary L. Granville, a former newspaper reporter and editor elected in 1986, and Treasurer-Tax Collector John M. W. Moorlach, the accountant who lost to Citron in June 1994. He was appointed to succeed Citron months later after his predictions of Citron’s financial folly proved true.

The new members enter a world of heightened scrutiny since the embarrassing bankruptcy, when residents angrily rejected officials’ meek pleas that they were caught unaware while the county treasury imploded. Time has healed some wounds: The recent Orange County Annual Survey showed a jump in confidence in government leaders compared with 1996, when more than half of respondents said county supervisors were doing a poor job.

But most residents will continue to view county government from a distance, said Fred Smoller, a political science professor at Chapman University. At most, the new officials will accomplish variations on the status quo because none of them campaigned with radical proposals. And the officials will still have to answer to a mostly unchanged board of supervisors and County Executive Officer Jan Mittermeier.

“There’s a tremendous amount of continuity given the types of people elected to county government,” Smoller said. “The far bigger issue as far as change is concerned is in Sacramento,” where Democrats posted their biggest gains in 40 years, including two new lawmakers from Orange County.

A less obvious impact of the exodus is the unknown number of county executives and workers who decide to retire, many of whom have worked in their departments for decades.

‘A Dam Breaking’

One of those observing the changes firsthand is Rueben Martinez, owner of Martinez Books and Art in downtown Santa Ana. He has watched county workers march in and out of his doors for 25 years. Many employees are now coming in to say happy holidays, and goodbye.

“We need new blood, new ideas, new themes, a new mission for the county,” said Martinez, a longtime community activist. “These veterans that have been there for so many years wanted everything to be just the way it was . . . but it developed to where it was a dam breaking at the seams.

“Like it or not, new people are going to have their chance, and they’ll be watched a lot more than the old-timers,” he said.

Another resident who has spent a lifetime watching elected officials is Shirley Grindle, author of the county’s campaign-reform ordinance and its ban on gifts. She said she’ll miss the fruitful relationship with Capizzi, who started working with her 20 years ago to target political corruption.

“I’ve been greatly indebted to the prior D.A.s and their staffs because without them we would not have progressed in cleaning up county government,” she said.

Grindle questioned the independence of both Rackauckas and Carona, who gained their offices with financial backing from some of the same powerful Republican legislators and business interests who have been targets of past enforcement. She warned that citizens won’t tolerate new officials reestablishing the same cozy relationships that created the unquestioning, chummy atmosphere that contributed to the bankruptcy.

Specifically, she said, Rackauckas made a campaign issue of Capizzi’s political prosecutions, saying the office’s resources could better be spent elsewhere than on campaign violations better handled by the state Fair Political Practices Commission.

“I’m looking forward to the first case I take to him to see how sincere he’s going to be,” she said.

Longtime lobbyist Randy Smith said the most noticeable change will be in the personalities and alliances that the new people bring to the county. In the last four years, the county’s elected officeholders have churned nearly completely, he said, with Silva, the longest sitting supervisor, barely finishing his first term.

“There are always good and bad things about change,” Smith said. “You’re dealing with a whole different set of values and backgrounds and experiences.”