‘Anti-Crime’ Coad vs. Anti-Airport Norby

In one of the first face-to-face debates of the campaign, Supervisor Cynthia P. Coad described herself Wednesday as a crime-fighter cleaning up drug-infested areas, while her rival, Fullerton Councilman Chris Norby, said Coad’s pro-airport stand “has poisoned politics” and divided the county.

Coad aggressively highlighted her program to clean up blighted, unincorporated areas. She downplayed her role as one of the three pro-airport supervisors as well as her vote for a landmark pact that guaranteed union labor on major public works projects to 2005.

The incumbent board chairwoman said she has worked to make the county “family-friendly” and responded to accusations that she has been divisive.

“I have been called divisive, yet I have endorsements of 24 out of 25 elected officials in my district,” Coad said.

Julia Emerson, who attended the Fullerton Republican Women’s debate at a Fullerton restaurant, challenged Coad during a question-and-answer period.

“You say you want to make the county ‘family-friendly,’” Emerson said. “But how do you justify that by supporting an airport for El Toro that will force families to deal with jet exhaust and noise?”

Coad responded that her definition of “family-friendly” means having jobs that an airport will bring. She said that she raised one of her sons with daily noise from combat aircraft when she and her husband, a Marine dentist, lived at the El Toro base.

“But you lived at El Toro when they had daylight flights only,” Emerson countered.

The debate marked one of the first times that Coad has gone before a Fullerton organization since the city was moved into the 4th District in last year’s redistricting. By contrast, Norby was in his political backyard, where he has been the city’s top vote-getter since he first won election to the council in 1984.

If a candidate receives more than 50% of the vote in the March 5 primary, he or she wins, and there is no general election. If Norby wins, it would mean a significant transformation on the Board of Supervisors, ending years of a pro-airport majority that consists of Jim Silva, Chuck Smith and Coad.

The debate format allowed the candidates to state their platforms, but there was no direct dialogue between them.

That didn’t stop Norby from hammering Coad’s support of a project labor agreement, which the board majority approved, in part, to help win labor’s support against Measure F, a 2000 anti-airport initiative that overwhelmingly won. A Los Angeles judge later declared the measure unconstitutional.

Norby expressed skepticism and frustration with the board’s labor pact, saying that it hurts many Orange County nonunion contractors and aids Democrats, who frequently receive campaign contributions from unions.

“The [pact] helps to elect people like [Assemblyman] Lou Correa and [U.S. Rep.] Loretta Sanchez, where 98% of the union money goes,” Norby said.

Coad, Silva and Smith are also aligned against Measure W, a countywide initiative in the March 5 primary election that would replace airport zoning at the 4,700-acre base with zoning for an urban park, university complex and sports fields.

Norby favors Measure W and has received the bulk of his campaign contributions from residents in South County.

Coad told the women’s group that she favors an airport because she doesn’t want to “cripple our economic engine.” She added that Measure W doesn’t guarantee a park, but if it passes, she will abide by it.

Until now, Coad has said she wanted only to keep the county’s “option open for an airport.”

Norby said he is against an airport at El Toro, saying that he believes a more suitable site would be March Air Force Base near Riverside.

Coad has received $636,766 in contributions for her campaign, the bulk coming from personal loans from herself and her husband. That is more than five times the amount collected by Norby, according to recent campaign finance statements. Norby’s contributions have mostly come from residents.

From October through December, Coad raised $65,079. Norby has raised $121,300 so far, collecting $78,100 in the last three months of 2001.