Six candidates see opportunity in O.C. supervisor’s race

It began in Sacramento last July, when an Orange County assemblyman, unaware that his microphone was on, began to brag about his sexual exploits with a female lobbyist.

A scandal erupted quickly and the career of Assemblyman Mike Duvall (R-Yorba Linda) came to a swift end. In a special election in January, Orange County Supervisor Chris Norby won the race to replace the disgraced lawmaker.

Now, voters will settle the last bit of business by filling Norby’s term, which was set to end in January.

Because Norby’s seat has been empty for months, the top vote-getter among the six candidates in the June 8 primary will immediately be sworn in. The stint could be short, however. If the winner fails to get more than 50% of the vote, there will be a November runoff between the two top voter-getters, though one would have the advantage of running as the incumbent.

The 4th Assembly District seat, which includes parts of Anaheim, Fullerton, Buena Park, Placentia and La Habra, is the only contested supervisorial race in the county. John Moorlach and Patricia Bates are up for reelection but both are running unopposed.

In the race for Norby’s former seat, Rose Espinoza, Lorri Galloway, Shawn Nelson, Harry Sidhu, Art Brown and Richard Faher see a chance to jump into county politics without the often difficult fight against an incumbent.

“It’s an open seat so it’s going to be an opportunity for me as a candidate to tell the message and walk the precincts,” said Espinoza, a La Habra councilwoman. “Incumbents usually win, and it’s very difficult for anyone to challenge them.”

Espinoza, who started an afterschool program in 1992 called Rosie’s Garage, ran for City Council three times before winning on her fourth try in 2000. She has served as mayor twice, and as supervisor wants to focus on housing and quality of life issues.

“This is a great time to run,” she said.

Given how many people are running for the one empty seat, few seem to expect that one candidate will win a majority of the votes in the primary.

“With this vacancy it’s become a whole other animal,” said Galloway, an Anaheim councilwoman. “It places more importance in winning in June.”

Even if for just a few months, the winner of the primary will have an advantage by being able to build the relationships and gain the status that come with being a county supervisor, she said.

Galloway, who has been on the council for six years and founded the Eli Home for Abused Children in 1983, said her experience in social services would allow her to be fair in making necessary cuts during tough economic times.

Some people have criticized Galloway and Sidhu for moving into the 4th District to run for the seat. Both have defended the move by saying that although their home addresses were outside the district, their work, as well as Anaheim City Hall, are in the district. Sidhu is the mayor pro tem of Anaheim.

Sidhu, an Anaheim businessman who owns three El Polo Loco franchises, said he would focus on eliminating burdensome regulations to attract more businesses to the county and increase sales tax revenue.

“We are not a business-friendly county,” he said. “There is not a single businessman who has the business sense to run for this district.”

Sidhu attributed the crowded field to the rare opportunity of winning an empty seat.

“I believe it’s an opportunity for people, since this seat is vacant, it’s more attractive,” he said. “It probably made more people join in, of course.”

Unlike the other candidates, Faher has never held political office and is running for only the second time — the first was for Duvall’s seat. He says his main focus is on pension reform and reworking the pension system in a way that the county can sustain.

The software application consultant said he was inspired to run for the Assembly seat after seeing Duvall being chased down the hall by a camera crew.

“I’ve completely had it with Orange County ‘Republicans in name only,’ ” he said. “If Mike Duvall would have never resigned I would have never run for office, it would have never crossed my mind.”

The other candidates include Brown, the Buena Park mayor who has held elective office for two decades. Brown serves on the Orange County Transportation Authority board and said he wants to shrink county government through attrition.

Brown said he decided to run only after his friend Clerk-Recorder Tom Daly dropped out of the supervisor’s race. But he recognized the effect Duvall has had on the race.

“Usually you don’t have people who move into the district just to run,” he said, referring to Galloway and Sidhu. “I don’t think it would have the carpetbagger aspect if it was just a normal race.”

Fullerton Councilman Nelson has been on the board since 2002 and served as mayor several times. He is a civil litigator in a Santa Ana law firm. He has been a vocal critic of the plan for a high-speed rail from Los Angeles to Anaheim, saying it would needlessly disturb neighborhoods.

raja.abdulrahim@latimes.com