Political Newcomer Tries to Start at Top in Supervisor Race

In the race to represent Orange County’s 1st Supervisorial District, the incumbent is chairman of the board, a man whose list of endorsements reads like a Who’s Who of elected and community leaders. The challenger is a brash newcomer, unafraid of an uphill battle.

Charles V. Smith, first elected in 1996, is the only member of the Board of Supervising facing an election challenge this year. Todd Spitzer is running unopposed and the board’s three other members do not face reelection until 2002.

Smith’s challenger, 28-year-old Eleazar G. Elizondo of Santa Ana, is an elementary school teacher making his first run at elective office. The Chapman College political science graduate said he was prompted to run by the board’s “ridiculous” vote to use $900 million in tobacco settlement funds to build jails and pay down the county’s debt instead of on health care.

“I got very angry,” Elizondo said. “I thought it was a very bad decision and a classic example of irresponsible local control.”

With only an informal network of friends and relatives to support his bid for office, Elizondo said he could have easily sat back and done nothing.

“Look, I’m not dying to be a politician,” said Elizondo, who is taking graduate classes and hopes to teach political science at the college level. But “the problem with me is that I don’t have the patience [of] an academic, where you’re supposed to only observe.”

The supervisors’ decision to use settlement funds over the next 25 years hurts victims of tobacco-related illnesses, Elizondo said. As a Santa Ana teacher, he sees a greater need for after-school, anti-drug and day-care programs than for another jail in the city.

He also supports Measure F, which would require approval by two-thirds of voters countywide before projects such as the proposed El Toro airport or large jails or hazardous-waste landfills could be built near homes.

The El Toro controversy has divided the board, with a 3-2 majority, including Smith, in support of an airport.

But Elizondo--who endorses the idea of converting the former Marine base to a commercial airport but does not support the current plan--points to El Toro as an example of how the supervisors decide major land use issues, including jails, without listening to the public. People “don’t feel they’re a part of it,” Elizondo said.

Smith, 67, is a retired aerospace engineer who has had a long political career, including stints as Westminster mayor and chairman of the Orange County Transportation Authority.

Smith has laid a strong political foundation that cuts across his district’s racially diverse constituency, including large populations of Vietnamese and Latinos.

He is endorsed by more than 40 elected officials ranging from city council members to Rep. Ed Royce (R-Fullerton). Smith also is supported by the county Deputy Sheriffs Assn., the county Employees Assn. and police chiefs from Westminster and Santa Ana.

Elizondo, though a newcomer, has some political credentials as well. He worked for two years as an aide in the Los Angeles office of Democratic Sen. Barbara Boxer and has endorsements from Santa Ana school board member Nadia Davis, Rancho Santiago College trustee Enriqueta Ramos and Santa Ana activist and business owner Ruben Martinez.

Smith’s support for an El Toro airport and the fact that Elizondo is Latino may help the newcomer at the polls March 7, said Fred Smoller, an associate professor of political science and Elizondo’s former instructor at Chapman.

“He may ride the wave in with health care instead of an airport,” Smoller said. “He has charisma and can speak in English and Spanish. I think he’ll have a tough race against Smith but the airport will have a bounce in his favor and he can get the Latino vote.”

But Smith, who has strong ties with the district’s ethnic and community leaders, touts his own credentials on Latino issues.

“My record with the Latino population is very strong,” Smith said. “I belong to the Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, I’ve worked very well with Latino leaders such as [Rep.] Loretta Sanchez and [Assemblyman] Lou Correa and I have a strong list of endorsements from Latino leaders.”

Among other accomplishments, Smith points to his role in establishing a task force in response to the deaths of two toddlers after their Spanish-speaking parents sought medical help in illegal back-room clinics.

In addition, he helped a Latino health clinic survive after it had lost funding and then spearheaded an effort to get another health clinic at the Delhi Center in Santa Ana.

Once opened, Smith then helped create a bridge with a nursing program at Long Beach State University to bring in nurses in Delhi.

Smith’s hands-on approach has made him a popular figure in his district, said Becky Esparza, former chair of the county’s Human Relations Commission.

“I met Chuck when he was on the council in Westminster. His approach was, ‘OK, I really need to know what the problem is and I need to know more about it,’ ” she said. Once learning what the problem was, Esparza added, Smith said, “OK, what can we do to solve the problem?”

“I like people like that,” she said.

As a measure of Smith’s broad support, his opponent may have been appointed by Santa Ana Mayor Miguel A. Pulido to the city’s Community Redevelopment & Housing Commission, but it is Smith who won Pulido’s endorsement.