Camarillo Councilman Prepares to Challenge Supervisor Long Again

Buoyed by strong financial support, Camarillo City Councilman Mike Morgan said Tuesday he is preparing to challenge county Supervisor Kathy Long in the spring primary election.

“I’ve found some people who want me to do it,” said Morgan, a councilman for 18 years. “So right now, it’s leaning that way.”

Long, 48, defeated Morgan, 52, by eight percentage points in 1996, when she ran to replace her boss, then-Supervisor Maggie Kildee. Long spent about $130,000 on the campaign and Morgan about $50,000.

“I’m not going out with an empty gun this time,” Morgan said. “I have to look at reality and make sure all the pins are in order.”

Morgan, a consultant to an Orange County developer and formerly a probation and pretrial officer, said he will make a final decision in the next month whether to seek the 3rd District seat.

The sprawling district includes Camarillo, Ojai, Santa Paula, Fillmore, La Conchita, Piru, Lockwood Valley and portions of Thousand Oaks.

While Morgan would not identify the possible new sources of campaign funds, Long said she believes that Camarillo-based religious broadcasting magnate Edward Atsinger may be a key Morgan backer.

“He’s been talking to Atsinger,” she said. “People in the community, my supporters, said they saw him and Mr. Atsinger in a very active conversation at a luncheon.”

Morgan said he did speak with Atsinger at a Republican women’s luncheon two months ago. But Long’s conclusions are only speculation, he said.

“There are several people, not just one. And she doesn’t know who my supporters are,” he said. “But I know who hers were. If you look at her last campaign, donations came from out of the county, and many were developers, or companies that had business with the county.”

Indeed, Morgan said that if he runs, he is going to make Long’s position on development a hallmark of his campaign, even though he works for an old friend who is a developer. He cited Long’s opposition last year to the SOAR--Save Open Space and Agricultural Resources--initiatives as a weakness.

“Her stand against SOAR flew in the face of 70% of voters in Camarillo and Thousand Oaks,” said Morgan, chairman of the Camarillo SOAR campaign. “That says something, doesn’t it?”

Long said that as co-chairwoman of the countywide Agricultural Policy Working Group, she led a campaign with the same goals as SOAR, while philosophically opposing making laws by initiative.

“We all had the same goal,” she said. “It was just how do you get there? I do not like land-use decisions, public-policy decisions, made by initiative. And SOAR is not a panacea. There is a lot of work left to be done behind SOAR.”

The SOAR initiatives, passed in five cities and countywide, require that voters approve any new development project outside city boundaries.

As evidence of her stand against overdevelopment, Long cited her support of the county’s lawsuit against developers of the huge Newhall Ranch on Ventura County’s eastern flank.

Morgan said Long is also vulnerable because she joined a 3-2 majority in favor of last year’s ill-fated merger of the county’s mental health and social services departments into a single agency.

The Board of Supervisors rescinded the merger in December after state and federal investigators began to look into mental health billing practices. The county may now face repayment of millions of federal dollars.

“The merger was a bad idea,” Morgan said. “Sometimes you have to take the advice of your [chief administrator].”

County Chief Administrator Lin Koester cautioned against the merger, citing a consultant’s study that said it could be illegal.

Long said she doesn’t think that the failed merger is a large problem. More than anything, it points out conflicting state and federal regulations on how to bill for health services, she said.

“I don’t think it’s the disaster it’s been portrayed [to be],” she said. “I will continue to fight so we don’t have to pay back anything. But what this has done is open up a Pandora’s Box of looking at the whole system. And that helps us do a better job.”

Morgan said his campaign would also take Long to task for not immediately opposing a businessman’s plan to bring one or two 727 jetliners a week to Camarillo Airport for conversion into cargo planes.

“My first reaction was, ‘No way,’ ” Morgan said. “Hers was, ‘Let’s wait and see what the staff says.’ ”

Long said Morgan’s memory is apparently foggy. She said they both sat on an airport subcommittee, listened to the same proposal and agreed that one plane should be brought in to see if it was a problem.

“He went with the committee decision,” she said.

And no plane ever landed since the businessman dropped the proposal, she said.

Morgan thinks that the issue could resonate in Camarillo, where residents resoundingly have opposed any measure that increases noise at the local municipal airport or Point Mugu Navy station five miles away.

Long said her campaign is off to a fast start, with a June 4 fund-raiser providing $27,000 to kick off the race. Among her supporters there, she said, was Sheriff Bob Brooks.

In 1996, then-Sheriff Larry Carpenter and the county deputy sheriffs’ association also backed Long, despite Morgan’s career in law enforcement as a county probation officer and federal pretrial services officer.

Long, who served as an aide to former Los Angeles City Councilwoman Pat Russell, said she expects strong law enforcement support this time as well.

“I feel I have the support I need to win this race,” she said. “Obviously, I’ve proven I can raise the money, and I’ll raise as much as necessary.”