Orange County Elections : Tight, 3-Way Race Seen in 4th District

At 1:30 p.m. James H. Beam slipped out from behind the wheel of his 1984 Mercedes-Benz with the license plate “Orange M,” locked the door and opened the trunk.

He pulled out a clipboard with the names of registered voters in the Buena Park precinct he was walking several weeks ago and rang the bell on the first door.

“I’m Jim Beam, a candidate for the board of supervisors,” he said to the woman who came to the door. “I wanted to drop by and leave this pamphlet with you. The incumbent is Ralph Clark and he’s retiring. I’m the mayor of Orange, and I hope you’ll read this pamphlet and decide to vote for me.”

With that, he smiled and walked next door.

“The name of the game is ring as many bells as you can,” Beam explained. “You’re not looking for long conversations, and most of them aren’t either.”

Three-Way Race

If public opinion polls are any guide, Beam is locked in a tough, three-way race for the 4th District seat on the Board of Supervisors along with Anaheim Mayor Donald R. Roth and former Orange County congressman Jerry Patterson.

Any candidate who wins a majority of votes in the nonpartisan June 3 election will win the seat outright. Failing that, the two top vote-getters will square off in a Nov. 4 runoff.

The winner will inherit a $55,000-a-year job and sit with four other supervisors who enact laws for unincorporated county areas, supervise John Wayne Airport and the County Jail, administer a budget of more than $1 billion a year for a county with about 12,000 employees.

In their battle for the coveted board seat--which includes voters in Anaheim, Buena Park, Orange, La Palma and unincorporated county islands--Roth, Beam and Patterson are focusing energies on the precinct level, as well as meetings with influential political groups and holding campaign fund-raisers.

Beam, 51, who has a real estate firm in addition to his political post, began occasional precinct walks in February and now does it daily. The walking and his mailing of brochures and potholders to the district’s estimated 190,000 registered voters have apparently boosted his standings in the polls.

From a distant third in the four-candidate race two months ago, Beam has moved up to just about even with Roth, 64, according to one poll commissioned by Beam and another by Patterson, who is considered to be the early front-runner.

“It’s going to be a tight race,” said Patterson, 51, an attorney who is walking precincts himself these days. Patterson said his latest poll gives him around 28% of the vote, to 22% for Roth, 21% for Beam and the large remaining chunk undecided.

November Runoff

Roth, who retired after a 20-year U.S. Navy career and worked in real estate before assuming the mayor’s job, has predicted he will win the contest on June 3. However, Patterson and Beam have indicated that they believe the race is headed for a November runoff.

Also in the fray is Manuel P. Mendez of Anaheim, an architect and self-described lay minister. Mendez, who is running a distinctly long-shot campaign, did not pay to have a statement mailed to voters and has not appeared at candidate forums with the other three men.

Ralph B. Clark’s announcement last year that he would not seek reelection after 16 years on the board set off the scramble for the 4th District seat. The absence of an incumbent with proven fund-raising and vote-getting abilities has made the race extremely close.

In the 5th District, by contrast, Thomas F. Riley, a supervisor since 1976, is considered a strong favorite to beat a challenge by former Laguna Beach Mayor Jon Brand. In the 2nd District, Harriett Wieder, a supervisor since 1979, has only token opposition from David J. Meslovich, an operations supervisor for an ambulance service. Supervisors Roger R. Stanton and Bruce Nestande are not facing reelection this year.

As they press the flesh and appeal to community groups for support, the three leading candidates in the 4th District race are stressing issues that range from the board’s recent decision to build a new County Jail in Anaheim, to county transportation and growth.

Beam: “I’ll tell you what I think is the No. 1 issue in this county, and that is transportation.”

A member of the Orange County Transportation Commission, Beam wants a state constitutional amendment to require that all money from the sales tax on gas and diesel fuel be spent on transportation, rather than having much of it go to the state general fund to be used for a variety of programs.

Patterson: “I think the issues are transportation, affordable housing and growth.”

A congressman for 10 years until his 1984 defeat by Rep. Robert K. Dornan (R-Garden Grove), Patterson says the county doesn’t get enough of its tax money back from Washington because of the perception that Orange County is “rich and Republican.”

Jail Issue Helps

Roth: “The jail issue is certainly helping me. . . . The misplaced (location), to take $10 million (worth of property) and build a jail. It’s the wrong time and the wrong place.”

Chairman of the executive board of the South Coast Air Quality Management District, Roth also speaks of the need to dispose of toxic wastes safely, saying: “We are in a new era today, an era in which we must concern ourselves with toxic wastes.”

Clark fought unsuccessfully to keep the jail out of his district, but wound up on the wrong end of a 4-1 vote in March. Patterson and Beam are also opposed to putting the new jail in Anaheim, but Roth, as mayor of the city, has reaped the biggest publicity bonanza from his opposition.

Although the race is nonpartisan, party loyalties sometimes become an issue among Roth and Beam, both Republicans, and Patterson, a Democrat.

“(Patterson’s) standard campaign speech is, ‘You should elect me because I know how to go to Sacramento and Washington and get more of Orange County’s tax dollars returned.’ Hey, he’s not paying attention. That’s not what Gramm-Rudman is about,” Beam, referring to the federal legislation to balance the federal deficit by 1991, said at a Young Republicans meeting last month.

At the same meeting, Roth warned the youthful GOP members: “Don’t underestimate the menace of Mr. Patterson and his slick tongue and the whole package.”

Because of his 10 years in Congress, Patterson started as an early front-runner in terms of the number of voters familiar with his name. Last week, after Patterson rang her doorbell, an Anaheim woman said, “I wondered what happened to you” after losing to Dornan.

However, Patterson did not declare his candidacy until January, months after Beam and Roth, and has lagged behind them in raising money.

Last year, Roth raised $212,349 and Beam $189,663. Patterson raised no money in that period and is still paying off a debt from his 1984 congressional campaign.

From January of this year through March 17, Roth added another $33,444 and Beam garnered an additional $33,359. Meanwhile, Patterson reported raising only $14,572, which political consultants said would cover only about half the cost of producing and mailing a brochure to all voters in the district.

Major Fund-Raiser

Patterson, however, held his first major campaign fund-raiser last week, a $500-per-person affair that his campaign officials said brought in between $35,000 and $40,000. He has a $150-a-head gathering scheduled for this week. Patterson’s finance chairwoman, Linda Moulton, said Friday that the campaign to date has raised $103,741. The balance will be itemized on campaign fund-raising reports that Patterson and the other candidates are required to make public later this month.

Political observers not involved in the campaign speculate that Patterson is hoping his name recognition will get him into a Nov. 4 runoff and that he will not have to spend money except that needed for campaign literature toward the end of the race.

Despite districtwide mailings by Beam and Roth, and door-to-door campaigning by Beam, Roth and Patterson, the race has sparked little interest among most voters as yet, according to the candidates’ staffs.

As Beam rang doorbells in Buena Park several weeks ago, for example, he encountered a typical reaction from resident Greg Carns, who asked: “When is this (election) taking place?”

At another house, Beam handed a brochure to resident John Van Dyke and said, “I hope after you read the pamphlet you’ll vote for me.” Van Dyke glanced at the material and replied, “We’ll keep you in mind.”

And as Beam walked past campers and RVs parked in driveways to the house of the next registered voter on his list, he joked that at this point, most people “don’t know what a board of supervisors is.”