Supervisors Face Serious Competition

Two Riverside County supervisors face serious challenges in the March 2 election despite their hefty war chests and well-worn political names, campaign muscle that in past years had been enough to make the incumbents easy favorites.

Supervisor Bob Buster is being challenged by the widow of a sheriff’s deputy, who has the backing and campaign donations of public-safety unions who fear Buster will work to eliminate their lucrative retirement plan. A former Lake Elsinore councilman is also taking on Buster in a bid to represent the 1st District, arguing that the incumbent is too liberal for the Inland Empire.

The 3rd District race pits old Riverside County against new. Incumbent Jim Venable, a plain-spoken man who was has lived in Hemet all his life, is being challenged by Jeff Stone, a councilman in Temecula, a wine-country community filled with expatriates from Orange County and San Diego.

Political experts say the opposition is inevitable, given the county’s rapid population change.

“These longtime guys are going to face more challenges because we’re not the old Inland Empire anymore,” said Shaun Bowler, a political science professor at UC Riverside. Growth has brought an influx of “new interests and a lot of new voters with new concerns and people with new ambitions. We used to be a sleepy, out-of-the-way, desert sort of place. Not anymore.”

The candidates have already raised more than $1.4 million.

In 2003 and ‘04, Buster raised $500,000, mostly from major Southern California homebuilders, campaign finance reports show. Despite that support, Buster said he has been a major critic of the housing industry, noting that he first championed the per-house transportation fee that developers must pay to build in Riverside County.

“It’s extremely important in the next few years to have some tough, experienced supervisors in office. I think I’m one of those,” said Buster, 60, who has been on the board for 12 years. Such knowledge is vital “primarily because of the state budget crises, but also because we’re putting in place important programs such as a new General Plan, our big new road/transportation program, the multi-species [conservation] plan and a lot of similar efforts.”

Among the accomplishments Buster said he is proud of included working to transform the former March Air Base into a business center, and efforts to bring a medical school to UC Riverside.

Buster has been endorsed by the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Assn., volunteer firefighters and the county sheriff and district attorney. But the public-safety unions are working to defeat him.

The Riverside Sheriff’s Assn. has thrown its support behind Linda Soubirous, the widow of a deputy killed in the line of duty more than a decade ago.

In 2003 and ‘04, Soubirous (pronounced Subaru) has raised more than $233,000, with 71% of that -- $164,634 -- coming from one source, the Riverside Sheriff’s Assn. Soubirous, 42, is the president of a national nonprofit organization that helps rebuild the lives of survivors of law enforcement personnel killed in the line of duty. She decided to run, she said, because she believed Buster had done a lackluster job.

“I thought about it a couple years ago, when I just realized there are things we can do to make this county better,” she said. “Traffic is totally out of hand. There’s a lack of planning with all of the new developments.”

A primary concern is that the county is undercutting public safety, she said. She blamed the board for thousands of criminals on probation “running the streets” because the county, failing to offer competitive pay, didn’t have enough probation officers. She said there were too few sheriff’s deputies and firefighters to adequately protect all residents. Plus, she said, the county was wasting millions of dollars annually in needless spending.

Pat McNamara, president of the Riverside Sheriff’s Assn., said the group was opposing Buster because of his support of a needle-exchange program for drug users, as well as the issues cited by Soubirous.

“The entire time he’s been a supervisor, the radio system has been defective, there’s been an appallingly low deputy[-resident] ratio,” McNamara said. “We’re just going in the wrong direction. It’s time for us to refresh the board and get new ideas on the board.”

McNamara said the opposition was not influenced by Buster’s vote against a Sheriff’s Department employee retirement plan, which was approved and allows for lucrative benefits at age 50. However, the group’s website has posted a warning that Buster’s priority if reelected is to do away with the retirement plan.

The third candidate in the 1st District is Kevin Pape, a former Lake Elsinore councilman. Pape has raised nearly $25,000 and has been endorsed by former California GOP gubernatorial nominee Bill Simon. Pape, 46, said his proudest accomplishments on the City Council included lowering crime by 60%, obtaining $15 million to improve the lake’s water quality, and widening and straightening California 74.

“We don’t have adequate roads and signals at intersections, not enough classrooms for students,” he said.

In the race to represent the 3rd District, two-term Supervisor Jim Venable is facing Temecula Councilman Jeff Stone.

Venable said he had planned on serving only two terms but decided to run for a third because of the state fiscal crises. He said the state’s financial problem “is of such magnitude it’s going to take me to really dig in and work diligently to make sure we can survive all this and get everything done we need done.”

Additionally, he said he wants to see the fruition of a longtime goal -- four major road-widening projects in the 3rd District -- California 79, Domenigoni Parkway, and Scott and Clinton-Keith roads.

Venable, 67, was born on a ranch in Hemet, attended high school there and eventually took over his father’s aviation business. Venable also raced cars and pickup trucks for more than two decades before creating a racing team that included drivers who went on to the Indy and NASCAR racing circuits.

Venable, who has raised nearly $350,000 in 2003 and ‘04, urged voters to consider his experience.

“You should look at the record very, very carefully, and look at the background of individuals very, very carefully, what we’ve each done and what we’ve done throughout our lives and how we’ve handled our lives,” he said.

Stone, his challenger, has served as a city councilman for 12 years.

Stone, 48, was raised in Anaheim and attended college in Los Angeles before moving about two decades ago to Temecula, drawn by the “quality of life and the country atmosphere.”

He said his proudest accomplishments on the council included reducing graffiti, drunk driving and red-light running; fighting Wal-Mart, and improving ambulance response times.

Another Temecula councilman had planned to oppose Venable, but bowed out after receiving a job offer from a developer. So Stone stepped in, and has raised more than $300,000 in campaign funds, which include a $100,000 loan from a friend.

“I knew someone needed to run against him because we could not tolerate another four years of his leadership,” Stone said.

He said Venable had “rubber-stamped” grossly inappropriate developments that Temecula had successfully overturned through the courts.

“We need to put citizens first and developers second,” Stone said. “We need to hold developers responsible to mitigate their impact by providing roads and bridges around their development, and to make a commitment to regional infrastructure to mitigate their growth.”