Madame Chairwoman Coad?

Relative newcomer Cynthia P. Coad appears to have the inside track to become the chairwoman of the Orange County Board of Supervisors, officials said Friday.

If Coad is chosen Tuesday, it would indicate the board’s pro-airport majority is intent on keeping a grip this year on planning for a commercial airport at the closed El Toro Marine Corps Air Station.

Last year, the three pro-airport supervisors voted in Chuck Smith, a symbolic choice in a year that included the emotional ups and downs of Measure F, an anti-airport ballot initiative. The measure was passed by 67.3% of the voters in March but was ruled unconstitutional by a judge last month.

Smith said the chairman sets the board’s agenda and serves as a point person, the initial contact for anyone who seeks to do business or needs assistance from county government.

Coad, 67, has been on the board only two years but said she feels she is qualified to take the helm. The job is for one year.

“I would be willing to do it, and I’m qualified to do it,” Coad said Friday. “I think I’ve had a good track record in the two years and been able to show where my interests are and how I work with the community. This would be a good time.”

The last woman to chair the board was Harriet Wieder, who first held the job in 1985 after being bypassed several times.

Though the chair position was once largely ceremonial, it has gained political clout in recent years because of the divisiveness of the airport and other issues, said Fred Smoller, director of the Henley Social Sciences Research Laboratory at Chapman University in Orange.

“They’re in a fight to the finish on El Toro and don’t want to give any quarter to the anti-airport people,” Smoller said. The board will not choose anti-airport supervisors Tom Wilson or Todd Spitzer, he said, “because they want to continue keeping them in minority status.”

Wilson, an airport critic who was appointed to the board in 1996, is the senior member of the board and would be snubbed again.

Imitating Johnny Carson’s “Carnac the Magnificent” routine, Wilson said, “The answer to the question is ‘Not Me.’ And the question in the envelope is ‘Who do you think is going to be the chair this year?’ ”

“We laugh,” Wilson said, “but it’s a sad story that an honorary chair of the board can’t be extended to a minority supervisor.”

Former Supervisor Don Saltarelli said too much is at stake not to take advantage of the board’s 3-2 pro-airport majority.

“In the long run, if the airport is a necessary thing and if you feel it’s important, then the position of chairman is important,” he said. “Right now, it’s a 3-2 majority to build an airport.”

But Smoller argued that the board majority may have been heavy-handed too many times. To “defeat and vanquish” the enemy, he said, “doesn’t work in a democratic model.”

“They just don’t get it that they have to work with the opposition to get anything done,” Smoller said. “A talented and committed minority, as is the anti-airport forces, will always find a way to stop the process. And it’s always easier to stop something than to get something done.”

Before being elected to the board, Coad was a North Orange County Community College District trustee for six years. She has raised seven children, taught herself Spanish, written three self-help books and taught young people to read.

She holds a bachelor of science degree in occupational therapy and a doctoral degree in education.