Tuesday, February 1, 2011

Tom Fuentes, 1970 (boy S&L "consultant")

40 years ago
     Tonight, I was thinking about Tom Fuentes’ curious career as a “consultant,” and that led me to reread some old articles about him.
     That brought me to an article, by Roy Rivenburg, written a year or so before Fuentes’ rise to the chairmanship of the OC GOP in 1984:

    "Tom Fuentes is a Man of Plenty," Orange Coast Magazine, September, 1983 (p. 138)

     You’ll recall that Fuentes’ early (teen-through-college) years were spent battling for Republicans in local (OC) races. According to Rivenburg,
…During his final semester at Chapman College, [Fuentes] managed Ron Caspers’ upset victory [June 1970—Fuentes would have been about 21 years old] over an incumbent county supervisor [Republican Alton Allen]. The grateful Caspers awarded Fuentes with a retroactive college scholarship and a position as consultant to the savings and loan firm he owned. The new supervisor also named Fuentes as his senior aid.…
     That all came to an end, I guess, nine days after Caspers' reelection in 1974, when he and nine others disappeared off the coast of Baja (an apparent yachting accident) and were never seen again.

Disneyland

     But enough about that. I’ve heard that Caspers’ 1970 campaign was fierce, and so I did some digging. I found a 1988 Times article about OC recall efforts, including an attempted recall of Caspers’ Board of Supes predecessor:

     3 Recall Attempts in Past 40 Years Failed (LA Times, April 28, 1988)
…The most serious attempt to recall a county supervisor came in late 1969 and early 1970, when board member Alton E. Allen was targeted by a group that used the effort to bloody Allen politically before defeating him in a subsequent supervisorial race.

Fake Newspaper
    The recall group circulated 8,000 copies of a fake newspaper that suddenly appeared on people's doorsteps. The newspaper, the Homeowners Beacon, charged that Allen had been unresponsive to 5th District residents' concerns about airport noise, elimination of a road to the Salt Creek public beach and placement of large landowners' holdings in agricultural preserves.
    The effort was spearheaded by Anthony Tarantino of San Clemente and Paul B. Carpenter, a political activist who later served in the state Senate and who is now a member of the State Board of Equalization. Both men acknowledged at the time their role in mailing the Beacon tabloid.
    The recall drive fell short of the necessary signatures. But before then, Allen had charged that the drive was part of a strategy by a savings and loan president, Ronald W. Caspers to defeat him in the June, 1970, election for 5th District supervisor. Later, both sides conceded that the strategy had worked….
     It sounds like Caspers may have been involved in this "fake newspaper” gambit. Does that suggest that Fuentes, to whom Caspers would soon be so grateful, was also involved?
     Carpenter, a Cypress Democrat, soon became one of the most notorious characters in OC corruption history. Why, at this point, he would be involved in an effort to unseat Allen is unclear to me, especially if the beneficiary of that effort was a Republican—namely, Caspers.
     It does appear that Caspers was a real bastard. And Tom was his boy. And 21-year-old Tom soon became a “consultant” at Caspers’ S&L.
     As I recall, Fuentes majored in Political Science. What would he be qualified to do at an S&L?
     Answer: consulting.

In 1970, OC was even more colorless than now

     The following story, related by Gustavo Arellano, provides some sense of what kind of guy Ronald Caspers was:
Caspers, annoyed that a Mexican-American group of county employees were demanding affirmative action (he had accused one of the leaders of not being an American citizen), called them "bandidos" during a board meeting, then asked county counsel to explore moving the county seat from SanTana to whiter environs because "we are in an area which does not have a normal ethnic balance."

…Caspers ended up apologizing for his gaffe during a board meeting, and the other supervisors reprimanded him publicly. Caspers claimed he didn't know bandido was an offensive term to Mexicans, a bullshit excuse considering Chicanos had just successfully axed the Frito Bandito the year before.
     Gosh, just think. Only a couple of years earlier, the Saddleback Community College District board of trustees had chosen the Frito Bandito as the college mascot!
     –Well, not really. But pretty close:

The Saddleback College "Gaucho"


6 comments:

Anonymous said...

The Melodyland Theatre was open between 1963 and 1969. A good if odd memory.

Anonymous said...

Roy, something sounds fishy here; it just doesn’t seem to add up.

In previous articles i.e. “Liver Boy” you’ve stated that Tom Fuentes is like 90 years old, yet according to this article, if he was 21 years old in 1970, that makes him 62 years old today.

Another discrepancy: A few weeks ago in another one of your articles, you go on about how Tom Fuentes is uneducated, yet in this article it shows he went to, and I assume graduated from Chapman U. How could this be, Roy?

Not that I’m sticking up for the guy, it’s just that these two discrepancies kinda jumped right out at me.

Anonymous said...

ahem, hyperbole:

"a figure of speech that uses an exaggerated or extravagant statement to create a strong emotional response"

Someone else can take the Chapman bait.

Roy Bauer said...

"Anonymous" 6:40--you seem to be making the familiar noises of the "incorrigible one."
No, I have never suggested that Fuentes is 90. Possibly I did so with manifest hyperbolic intent, in which case, again, no, I have not mischaracterized his age. He was born in 1949. That is no secret.
I never said that Fuentes is literally uneducated. Naturally, I am perfectly aware that he went to college (he started at a community college--at Sana Ana, I believe--and then transferred to Chapman). The man has a BA in Poli Sci from a mediocre college but situates himself in roles and settings that imply learning and seems to embrace phony honorary degrees (not to mention photographs of himself with such "great men" as Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan). Get it?

Anonymous said...

So what you’re saying here is your side can freely use “manifest hyperbolic intent” (BvT), which is the “proper academic way” of describing and justifying the use of BS?

Then you say, Chapman U is a “mediocre college” (BvT)? Gee, aren’t you supposed to be supportive of local institutions our students may transfer to? I wonder what would happen if word got out to faculty and admin. at Chapman, that some yahoo professor over at IVC JC has been publicly bashing their institution?

Yeah, I thinks I get it Roy.

Roy Bauer said...

When Fuentes graduated in 1970, Chapman was indeed a modiocre college. That was forty years ago.
And, again, I do not believe that I ever said that Fuentes is 90 years old. My point was that, if I were ever to say such a thing, it would be an example of manifest hyperbolic intent. Do I need to explain the word "manifest" to you? Apparently. Good Lord. Please go away. This is a college blog.

Roy's obituary in LA Times and Register: "we were lucky to have you while we did"

  This ran in the Sunday December 24, 2023 edition of the Los Angeles Times and the Orange County Register : July 14, 1955 - November 20, 2...