O.C. Sheriff to Run for a 3rd Term

Orange County Sheriff Michael S. Carona will run next year for a third term, saying he’ll leave it to voters to decide if he should keep a job he pledged in 1998 that he’d hold only for two terms.

His announcement ends speculation that he might give up his post and run for lieutenant governor, drawing on the popularity of his friend Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger. The two worked together in 2002 on the passage of Proposition 49, statewide funding for after-school programs.

Carona said he agonized over the decision, weighing the rigors of a statewide campaign and a desire to spend time closer to his son, Matt, 14. Carona already travels frequently as a senior advisor to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and as a member of a national committee studying California’s Amber alert system for child abductions.

“There were a lot of rumors about what I was going to do with my life, and I had to make some personal decisions,” he said Monday during a phone interview. “I had to think: What am I passionate about and what do I want to do with my life? It came down to that the job I want is the job that I’ve got.”

The two-term pledge was among 10 promises made by Carona when he ran for sheriff in 1998. He had expected to take on longtime Sheriff Brad Gates, who had held the job for 24 years, then faced Assistant Sheriff Doug Storm when Gates announced he would retire. Storm dropped out weeks later; Carona eventually prevailed over Santa Ana Police Chief Paul M. Walters.

As late as 2003, Carona was sticking by his plans to leave after eight years. He told The Times during an interview that year that he wouldn’t run for a third term unless a transition would imperil the department, a situation he said would arise only if there were another large-scale terrorist attack or a similar critical event in which the public interest would be served by stability.

“This office, there’s so much power given to whoever holds it,” Carona said at the time. “It needs to turn over so you don’t feel like you own the place.”

Two developments intruded: the firing last year of his campaign manager, former Assistant Sheriff George Jaramillo, who faces felony charges of misappropriating public resources, and the resignation of Assistant Sheriff Donald Haidl to concentrate on his son’s legal problems. Gregory Haidl and two other young men were convicted in a sexual-assault case last month.

Jaramillo has pleaded innocent and last month filed a wrongful-termination lawsuit against Carona and the county.

Political handicappers predicted Carona would have difficulty in a statewide race defending, among other things, his judgment in persuading the Board of Supervisors in 1999 to change county rules that would allow Jaramillo, an attorney, and Haidl, a wealthy businessman and campaign supporter, to become assistant sheriffs.

As talk mounted of a reelection challenge from a San Clemente sheriff’s lieutenant, Carona told friends and supporters that he wasn’t ready to leave and couldn’t endorse a replacement.

Carona cited two events that he said persuaded him to seek another term for sheriff: the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks and the kidnapping and slaying of 5-year-old Samantha Runnion.

His department’s swift capture of her alleged killer led to national praise and an effusive Larry King declaring Carona “America’s sheriff.”

Additionally, he said, there was unfinished business: to complete negotiations with Lake Forest for an expansion of the James A. Musick minimum-security jail and to lobby for expanding the Amber alert system nationwide.

At least one challenger is expected in next year’s election: Sheriff’s Lt. Bill Hunt, chief of police services in San Clemente. Hunt has said he is interested in running, though campaign paperwork isn’t due until early next year.