The Race for the Third Supervisorial District

Kathy Long

Two weeks before the filing deadline, Supervisor Kathy Long was expecting to be reelected unopposed. Then, over Thanksgiving weekend, newly hired county Chief Administrative Officer David L. Baker abruptly resigned, leaving a scathing analysis of Ventura County government’s fiscal and organizational flaws.

Suddenly, two challengers emerged and Long had a campaign on her hands.

Long, 50, owner of a small business, has spent most of her 20 years in politics behind the scenes. She served as top aide to former Supervisor Maggie Kildee and, when Kildee retired in 1996, won a spirited fight to take her place.

Question: You’ve been on the board for three years. What brings you back for more?

Answer: I feel that I’ve done a good job. I’ve engaged citizens in most of the work that I’ve done. Simply put, I enjoy what I do.

I’ve enjoyed the work that evolved out of the Heritage Valley effort--the economic engine that will help create some jobs and help the economy without leveling the agricultural community.

I certainly have enjoyed the policy level of work, sitting in the seat as the elected member after working as a staff person. This seat is much warmer at times but overall we’ve done some good work. The challenges ahead of us are big policy questions as to how the board will operate as the policymakers, as differs from managers.

I’ve enjoyed diversity of my district. [It] has been challenging to be able to engage the citizens and understand what each community has as its priority. Camarillo’s priority certainly is operation of the airport. Sitting on the airport authority has been a learning opportunity for me, also valuable in understanding the issues related to an enterprise and how to keep that a healthy enterprise without making it incompatible with the surrounding communities.

The university, of course, is the real exciting piece of this for the whole region. Because I sit on the site authority, I have the opportunity to connect a lot of the pieces that we’ve been working on in this county for years: improving educational and professional development opportunities yet maintaining that footprint of the university so it doesn’t create sprawl.

Q: Specifically, what makes you a better choice in this election than your opponents?

A: Certainly now I’ve had three years’ experience in the hot seat. Experience always lends itself to lessons learned: hands-on with the community work, engaging citizens in creating the visions and the solutions for the future. I’ve done a very good job with that.

I am moderate, I understand the challenges a county government faces in its relationship with the state. I’ve been willing to tackle the tough issues--initially the land use issue with the Ag Policy Working Group and the work that came out of that. I don’t think I’ve been reluctant to do the job at any level thrown at me.

Q: Let’s talk about the county’s financial situation and the policy versus management question. What did David L. Baker get right and what did he get wrong?

A: I think what he got wrong was “crisis.” I don’t think crisis is the appropriate word for what the county is dealing with. The counties are set to fail in the relationship we have with the state and the funding streams. I think what he got right is that, as a board, we haven’t yet jelled on our specific role, which should be as pure policymakers. I don’t think we should be in the role of hiring and firing second-level management, going around our chosen county manager to do personnel issues or pet projects.

I would like to see the board have a strong discussion about the next person to step into that permanent position having much stronger authority and ability to do the job. On the budget issues, one of the things that was stated in the missile that was fired at us was that the auditor is driving policy. That’s probably true.

Q: Should county auditor-controller be an elective office?

A: No. As we move through our fiscal stabilization and look at the management / CAO structure and relationship, I would like to have a blue-ribbon committee look at charter counties. Having five elected board members and six elected others puts us in always tenuous positions, whether we have a poor economy or a healthy economy. This needs to be taken slowly, to look at the pros and cons of it, and citizens need to make that decision. But the auditor’s role is a pure numbers, black-and-white, analytic and very defined. The auditor should not be involved in a political arena of driving policy, directing policy, creating policy.

Q: How do you feel today about your vote on the mental health merger?

A: There are two answers to that. We must separate the merger versus the litigation action [that followed].

The merger was a discussion of how best to provide services to the mentally ill clients. My support for moving the Behavioral Health Department to the Human Services Agency encompassed that whole Systems of Care philosophy, that they could best be served under the umbrella of a Human Services Agency that had already moved into that case-management model for the basic needs of a client, whether that client has a physical illness or a mental illness.

In hindsight, I would not make a decision like that again without having gone to the state mental health department to ensure that we were protected from any conflict in regulation, as has now been shown was the Medicare error. I felt that the state should have stepped in earlier and helped us with the [federal Health Care Financing Administration] issue, but by the time the issue was identified through the litigation and the Medicare disallowance issue, then the state backed off and HCFA became the driver on it.

Q: There were clear warnings from the CAO and a consultant. Why were those disregarded?

A: In June of 1997, on a unanimous vote by the board, there was a request made to do a complete study of the restructuring. It wasn’t until March that a document was provided to the board. That was a financial assumption document: if you do this, if you do that. In that period many meetings took place between the agencies and there were facilitated discussions on how the agency could move over, what the relationships would be. But there was never a document brought to the board that said, “Here’s the pros and cons of the structure part.”

The financial document by Deloitte & Touche was brought to the board saying, “Here are some options that may be a risk for us.” When I asked the CAO as to the statement on the HCFA issue, and I asked who Deloitte & Touche had talked to on that issue, their response was that they would not give us that information, they were concerned with litigation.

I feel today that if, in fact, they had talked to HCFA and HCFA said, “There is no question, you will lose these dollars,” then it should have been incumbent on us to go right away to HCFA and start to dialogue with them. There were some errors made, and I’m not discounting my own errors. The philosophy of moving the agency was still a sound philosophy.

Q: Since the Baker letter, what sort of grade do you give yourself and the board for responding to the concerns he raised?

A: I think our board works very well together. We have tiffs, we have differences of opinion, and the merger was very tough on all of us. We are working to mend that. The commitment by the board is to do a good process that’s going to build confidence back in the leadership.

I trust in Harry Hufford to get the fiscal back in order and, the next step, to have a very open dialogue about the role of whoever [succeeds him as chief administrator] and to be very blunt and honest with us about how better to operate the business of the county.

Q: One of the biggest responsibilities of county government is to provide health services. Pierre Durand heads up the Health Care Agency. His name has been in the news a lot because of the merger. Is he a good manager or is he a problem manager for the county?

A: Pierre has done an excellent job as an administrator in his ability to turn the hospital’s financials around. His personal management skills are not what I would like to see. That’s where I differ with him.

I feel that the head administrator of that agency could have done a lot to remove some of the angst that we’ve gone through with this whole issue. There was a digging in of heels and it did not help to reach a solution. I think there’s opportunity for change in leadership there.