Foy has strong early lead over Dantona for supervisor’s seat

Virtually unknown just six months ago, Simi Valley insurance broker Peter Foy held a strong early lead over opponent Jim Dantona in Tuesday’s fiercely contested race for Ventura County’s 4th District supervisor’s seat.

Local measures dealing with taxes, land-use policy and school bonds were showing mixed results in early returns. Ventura’s effort to raise the local sales tax by half a cent to fund police services was struggling to reach the two-thirds vote needed for approval.

Foy, 50, focused his campaign on two main themes: increasing funding for the Sheriff’s Department and slashing benefits to illegal immigrants.

Dantona, 58, a political consultant, said he was not ready to concede. “I’ve been in too many elections to make the call early,” he said late Tuesday.

Dantona ran a broad-based campaign that emphasized his political experience and ability to bring more state and federal dollars to the district.

The winner in the heavily Republican district will represent residents of Simi Valley, Moorpark and outlying communities on a board that oversees county law enforcement, administers social and health benefits for the poor and sets policy on how fast the county will grow.

The candidates waged a bruising and costly fight to take over the seat held for 12 years by Supervisor Judy Mikels, who was eliminated in the June primary. Mikels, 60, had been criticized as being out of touch on issues that mattered to constituents.

Together, Foy and Dantona spent more than $500,000 on mailers, signs and advertisements to familiarize voters with their names and messages. In recent weeks, brochures mailed by the candidates or their supporters took a negative turn, pointing out financial problems faced by each candidate in the past.

The public’s only chance to see the candidates together came last week at a debate in Simi Valley.

Though the race is nonpartisan, Foy played up his Republican credentials in a district where the GOP holds a 17-percentage point advantage among registered voters. Dantona, a career Democrat, downplayed his liberal past and portrayed himself as socially moderate and fiscally conservative.

Foy, who received the backing of the county’s law enforcement establishment, advocated term limits and said he would demand that the county not give illegal immigrants health or social benefits not mandated by state or federal laws. He also said he would vote against providing benefits to domestic partners of county employees.

Dantona played up the connections he has made in Sacramento and Washington, D.C., over a 30-year career as a consultant for Democratic candidates. He said his experience would enable him to jump right into the job, addressing concerns about growth control, illegal immigration and contamination at Rocketdyne’s Santa Susana Field Laboratory.

He criticized Foy as a right-wing extremist who does not support Save Open Space and Agricultural Resources, the county’s popular growth-control laws.

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catherine.saillant@latimes.com