For a Political Latecomer, Coad Quickly Moved on Up

To her critics, Cynthia P. Coad is an anomaly, a relative newcomer to the Board of Supervisors who has been hoisted to the top of the political heap by board allies.

She lacks experience, they say. She isn’t tough enough. She’s shepherded along by her husband, a successful dentist-turned-investor who is constantly at her side, even at her fifth-floor county office.

But Coad--a mother of seven who carved out her own niche as a college instructor and author of self-help books--has prevailed.

Last week, only midway through her first term in office, she was named board chairwoman, the person who will lead the county in what promises to be a white-water ride into the shoals of the county’s most pressing issues, a confluence of vexing matters. Redistricting. Jail expansion. The future of the retired El Toro Marine base and the looming fight over tens of millions of dollars a year in tobacco settlement money.

“I think I’ve gotten a good track record in the two years I’ve been on the board,” said Coad, 67. “I also think I’m qualified.”

She has spearheaded neighborhood preservation, especially in Latino communities, and positioned herself as a champion for single mothers and families in the county’s unincorporated and often-neglected pockets.

“Some of these areas were really bad,” Coad said. “They had abandoned cars. No code enforcement. People were selling drugs out of houses and gangs had taken over some of the neighborhoods. It was difficult for families to live there.”

Coad established a task force that created a team--from sheriff’s deputies to housing officials to probation officers--that swept into the forgotten nooks as part of the revitalization effort.

Gloria Lopez, 72, has lived in one of the unincorporated areas, known as Colonia Independencia, for 55 years. She says things are now better in her neighborhood, with cleaner and safer streets. Lopez also is one of Coad’s longtime friends. They met more than 27 years ago when a local community center headed by Lopez needed volunteers.

“She became an instructor, teaching English to neighborhood residents. I believe she got her sense of community here. She was one of my main volunteers,” Lopez said.

In turn, Coad learned Spanish to communicate with the center’s clients and in speeches even now, she often switches from English to Spanish to greet mixed audiences.

Along the way, Coad found a minor career as a writer. “Your Full Future . . . After the Empty Nest” was penned for women reentering the workplace. It’s still listed on Amazon.com. A second book--”How to Hire and Fire . . . Legally”--was written with her husband, Tom, and directed toward dentists and physicians.

When Coad decided to go into politics, she sought the advice of a friend, former Assembly Speaker Curt Pringle. At the time, her husband was Pringle’s dentist and the Coads were Pringle Drapery customers.

“I had always had an active role talking to community leaders about advice on running for office,” Pringle said. He recalled that she was torn between running for Pringle’s old Garden Grove Assembly seat or trying for a school board post. She picked the school board.

Coad won the college district seat, served six years and then handily defeated then-Anaheim Councilman Lou Lopez for a seat on the Board of Supervisors. When Coad moved into her new office at the county Hall of Administration in Santa Ana, her husband joined her as an unpaid staff member. Two years later, he continues to meet with business leaders, writes some of her speeches and helps draft policy positions.

The fifth-floor buzz is that Tom Coad sets his wife’s agenda. But she bristles at the rumor, saying that after 47 years of marriage it’s only natural for her to seek his counsel. “But I make up my own mind,” she said.

A series of fortunate stock investments made the Coads wealthy people, enough so they are generous donors to various charities. Last month, they gave $150,000 to a United Way program that will provide recreation, health and other programs in three Latino neighborhoods. They have provided $65,000 in scholarship funds to 67 recipients as part of the couple’s volunteerism awards for people who help in the communities of El Modena, surrounded by Orange, and Colonia Independencia, surrounded mostly by Anaheim.

“My husband said I always owed so much to the Hispanic community because that’s where I’ve worked and I’ve always wanted to have more kids going to college rather than into gangs,” she said.

Although she has promoted families and children, health care leaders took her to task when she was part of the board majority that pushed to spend tobacco settlement money on government debt and jail beds instead of health care.

During negotiations, which later broke down, Coad was called intractable and out of step with her constituents. Measure H on the Nov. 7 county ballot, directing county officials to spend the millions in settlement funds on health care, passed easily with 65% of the vote in the Nov. 7 election, a seeming mandate from voters. Coad, though, was unswayed.

She then was part of the board majority that voted to challenge Measure H’s constitutionality, asking the court to overturn it. That strategy was successful for Coad and her colleagues when they joined legal action to overturn Measure F, an anti-airport initiative that was approved last March by an overwhelming 67.3% of the vote.

Those she has fought, however, are forgiving.

“Changes allow new opportunities. We have not always shared the same views but we know that Supervisor Coad understands physicians’ concerns and we anticipate a positive working relationship,” said Michele Revelle, director of public affairs for the Orange County Medical Assn.

On the El Toro issue, Coad has moved away from supporting a major airport in favor of a smaller facility. Opponents aren’t buying it.

“For her to say, smaller, friendlier airport, is an oxymoron. It’s an airport and airports are not friendly, “ said Mission Viejo Councilwoman Susan Withrow, who chairs the El Toro Reuse Planning Authority, a coalition of nine anti-airport South County cities.

Supervisor Tom Wilson, who with colleague Todd Spitzer is the two-member board minority on such issues as tobacco money and the airport, believes Coad’s yearlong tenure as chair will be a “real test, a challenge.”

“As far as I’m concerned, she came in as a neophyte, because most of us came up through the ranks of the city councils and have a different understanding of politics,” said Wilson, who was bypassed for the chairman’s job. “She’s a quick study but two years hasn’t been enough.”

But supporters such as Bruce Nestande, a former county supervisor who is a leading airport proponent, said he is excited by Coad’s “fresh perspective.” And the fact that she is only the second woman in the county’s 111-year history to run the board holds meaning, Nestande said.

“Image is important in life and politics and it gives an image to Orange County that it isn’t just a good ol’ boys club.”