Crooked as a barrel of fish hooks

 

Richard O'Neill c. 1950

     Richard O’Neill (1924-2009), a wealthy Orange County land owner, wanted the Democratic Party to be a force in staunchly Republican OC, and he was willing to spend some of his enormous wealth to secure that end. By the early 70s, somehow, he had hooked up with a doctor—and registered Republican—named Lou Cella (1924-2011), a fellow who ran some kind of political operation out of a hospital. He too had big money to spend.
     At first, nobody was quite sure where the doctor’s political money came from. Eventually, he was convicted of stealing it from the taxpayers through massive Medicare and Medi-Cal fraud.
     In 1974, “Dick and Doc,” as they were known then in California political circles, were the state’s biggest political contributors. They made quite a splash, in Orange County, and throughout the state.
     O’Neill and his political cronies were developing a local political farm system, nurturing prospective political leaders via election, initially, to unexciting nonpartisan offices. They were assisted by a new breed of smart and ruthless political advisor, like consultants Butcher and Forde, who pioneered new tactics and technologies that, while sometimes ethically questionable, were undeniably effective.

Dr. Lou Cella c 1974

     Dick and Doc managed to get four of their people, three Democrats and one Republican, on the 7-member OC Board of Supervisors. That provided protection from the local DA, a Republican, who was determined to investigate Lou Cella and bring down his political machine. (Eventually, he succeeded.)
     Dick O’Neill was especially keen to land an OC politician in state office, and he was willing to fork over hundreds of thousands of dollars to make that happen. In 1974, Dick and Doc supported local pol, Ken Cory (1937-1998), for state Controller, and Cory won the office, retaining it for three terms. Cory, a former Assemblyman and avowed foe of greedy oil companies, had been working for years with the likes of Butcher and Forde and was himself a seasoned and innovative political tactician.
     Arguably the most experienced—and least scrutinized—among O’Neill’s crew, a man judged a “political genius” by Cella, was Fred Harber (1919-1974), who, starting in the 50s, had secured some local political offices (City Council, Mayor), but by the early 70s, had developed into OC’s shadowy political kingmaker. According to OC district attorney Cecil Hicks, Harber and his pals, especially Lou Cella, ran a “shadow government.” He took a dim view of that sort of thing.

     Harber was smart all right, but he was also dirty. Early on, relying on political connections, he set up lucrative “pay to play” schemes. It appears that, along with OC Supervisor Ronald Caspers, he was pursuing one such scheme when he mysteriously disappeared, with Caspers and eight others, in a yacht off the coast of Mexico. Neither the yacht nor the ten men on it were ever seen again.
     It was not the first, and it would not be the last, curious death among this cast of characters.
     It is said that the 1974 yachting disaster, taking both Caspers and Harber, marked the beginning of the end for the “coalition.” Soon, it all went poof.
     I want to explore and investigate the darker corners of this tale.
     Here’s a good starting place: an interview of Ken Cory in late 1987 and early 1988, years after his surprise retirement from politics.

Interview of KEN CORY by Gabrielle Morris (1930-2013)
October 1, October 22, December 10, 1987, and
February 6, 1988, Sacramento, California

“YOU OWE US”

Cory

CORY: [circa 1974:] People said… “You really should run for something, and we'll back you.” I declined, and they asked me to meet with them one more time, and they made some very strong personal appeals to me as to what I owed to them for their past support.

MORRIS: People in your legislature, or in the party?

CORY: No, there is no Democratic party, there is a group of people. There were people, most of whom were Democrats, some of whom were Republicans, but they were friends of mine, and supporters of mine, who said, “You owe us more than that than to just quit. We want to continue to support you, and we don't care what it costs.” We had some very frank discussions about the cost, and I finally said, “Well, the only other office, other than governor, that I think I would be willing to run for would be senator.” It was clear that I wasn't in the league to run for governor, or United States senator, and the only other subject matter that had any appeal or interest to me was the Controller's office.

MORRIS: Could you say a little bit more about the business of your supporters saying “You owe it to us for what we've done for you”? That's pretty heavy stuff.

CORY: Well, yes. They said that they'd always supported me, and that they'd invested money, because they thought it was important, and that they believed in me, and that I had an obligation not to just quit.

MORRIS: They'd made you a visible public figure…

CORY: Yes, and it was important to them, and things they were interested in, the causes, the shades of that. There were about six or eight of them. Plus, they wanted me to run for controller. This was sort of last minute; I had decided I wasn't running for anything, although in retrospect, some of that … people who worked for you end up having a vested interest in having you continue to run, because they have…

MORRIS: Your deputy and administrative assistants?

CORY: Employees, and that sort of thing. And your fundraisers, and people get ego gratification from knowing somebody in Sacramento, and all that. They just didn't want to give that up. And so, I could see that there was some sense of obligation. There was also something that I thought would be fun to do, if I were controller, and I thought well, you know, I could do that for four years and then I could get out and do whatever I wanted.
   That didn't come to pass, and I assumed that four or five years, the major thing I was interested in was trying to resolve the price fixing of oil, which was very clearly going on. I thought that could be litigated within a four to five year period of time. Three years, if you got lucky.

MORRIS: The controller's office has a vantage point from which to initiate that kind of research. But had you had any particular contacts with your predecessor as controller, or any of his people?

PAL OF REPUBLICAN CONTROLLER, FLUORNOY

Hugh Fluornoy

CORY: I'd been a friend of [Republican moderate] Hugh Fluornoy's since '61… [I]n '61 or '62, Hugh tried to get me to go to work for him, when I was on the [Assembly Education Committee] staff. I just thanked him very much, because it was a very gracious offer that he made to me…. And I just said, “Hugh, I'm a Democrat. I'm sorry, I like you, it has nothing to do with that, but I just would not be comfortable working for a Republican.”

MORRIS: Did he have some of the same concerns you did about the way some of the large corporations did business on related matters?

CORY: Yes, I can recall one time going to Hugh and explaining what I thought the public good should be.

RUNNING FOR CONTROLLER (1974):

CONTROVERSIAL SUPPORT AND FUNDING

MORRIS: Did you anticipate your supporters and funding were going to become such a controversial issue?

CORY: I'd discussed that with them beforehand, that it would clearly become a major issue. And that they would undergo a great deal of personal scrutiny, and they ought to be prepared to endure it. It was inevitable, if they were going to contribute that much money. It was so preposterous and so foolish.

MORRIS: Why did they contribute—it may sound like an odd question—but why did they contribute that much money?

DICK AND DOC

O'Neill

CORY: They were on an ego trip and they wanted to do it. If you look at it and understand it, it was basically [Richard] Dick O'Neill and [Dr. Louis] Lou Cella. The two of them were making a great deal of money. Dick is one of the wealthier people in the state of California.
   Dick O'Neill … and his sister Alice [O'Neill]… [T]he family is a meat-packing family, and has been in the meat-packing business for generations. Dick and Alice are longtime members of the Forbes 400. Are you familiar with that … designation? … [T]hey estimate each of them were worth $275 million. They don't try to make money.

MORRIS: Just makes itself.

CORY: They spend more time avoiding money. Dick—if he had had people like the people I know that are around [ ] Sid Bass—Dick could clearly be worth two or three billion. It's inordinate wealth, and so, five, six hundred thousand dollars to Dick O'Neill is irrelevant. It truly is irrelevant, and Dick happens to like politics, and our biggest chore in that campaign was to keep him and Lou from spending money.

MORRIS: Have they backed statewide candidates before?

RESENTMENT

CORY: No, that was part of it—they had never been taken seriously. Dick really resented … you have to understand, the O'Neill family, they still own forty thousand acres of Orange County. They do not have a mortgage on the forty thousand acres.

MORRIS: They inherited it.

CORY: But it's free and clear. That land is worth… [L]arge portions of it currently you could sell for a million dollars an acre.

MORRIS: Orange County is indeed sort of a landowner's heaven.

CORY: And the O'Neill family owned Camp Pendleton at one time. Dick O'Neill's home that he grew up in as a child is the officer's club at Camp Pendleton. So he grew up going to school at the Mission San Juan Capistrano, in a landed aristocracy. When he got to high school age, they bought a house in Beverly Hills for him to get an urban education.
   So he got up there and I would guess [he was] not treated very well, because they considered him a hick from Orange County.
   He had been living under that kind of pressure from people. But through the years, O'Neill as a contributor… people from statewide campaigns would not take Orange County seriously. They would not come to Orange County; they would not help the Democratic party build.

MORRIS: Because [OC] was conservative.

CORY: Orange County was Republican, and all they were interested in was finding rich people in Orange County who would give them money, so they could spend it.

MORRIS: And not have any input in return for the money.

CORY: Yes, and that whole thing. Dick found it the same with many wealthy people; they resent being used just for their money.

MORRIS: That's interesting, I thought that the state Democratic finance committee was set up to find and cultivate and make friends of rich, rich Democrats in whatever county they were in?

CORY: Dick is substantive enough to say, “Well, why do I have to go to Beverly Hills to a meeting? Why can't we get a bunch of rich people together here in Orange County, and have them come down here and talk to us?” So in the '64 campaign (where Dick and I developed a fairly decent relationship) with [U.S. Senator] Pierre Salinger, I was able to raise money by convincing Pierre and [Donald J,] Don Bradley, who was running his campaign in the general election, that we could raise real money. [B]ut Pierre was going to have to spend time with people.
   For that period of time, we raised a lot of money for Pierre. We raised in one dinner at the Villa Fontana $93,000. Dick thought that was great, because he could go in Orange County, right in Santa Ana—actually, it was in Orange, on Main Street—and it was Orange County. It was…

MORRIS: Where he felt comfortable. He knew something.

CORY: Yes, and grew up there, and that they would give him some recognition. At that time, Pierre was a United States senator, and actually came down and had a dinner with twelve, fourteen people. They kicked in a lot of money.

MORRIS: That's the Ben Swig school of fundraising.

CORY: Yes, … Dick O'Neill puts on the fundraisers in Orange County at the ranch. Most candidates would rather have Dick O'Neill write the check, but Dick wants the action, and doing a barbecue at the ranch. It would be cheaper for Dick to write the check, but there's no point…

MORRIS: How did you get to know him?

CORY: I met him in '64, when he was sort of around. He decided to spend more time in Orange County in '64.

MORRIS: He'd been away for a while?

CORY: Dick had just won some litigation against Crocker Bank. The property was in a trust. Crocker Bank tried to sell the ranch for $five million, $seven million, one or the other, and Dick thought that was wrong, and litigated it, and won. So he wanted to start spending more time down there. He started to develop Mission Viejo [with Donald Bren]. It was just about to open…

MORRIS: He sounds like he might have been related to or had similar problems with the [University of California Irvine] Irvine campus.

CORY: He resents … that's one of his problems: the family is an older landed family than the Irvines. He resents the publicity that Irvine family gets. Jokingly, it frequently was referred to as … the Irving Company.
   …And so since then, they were referred to as the Irving Company. … I mean, here was a family that had owned this land long before [James] Jim Irvine, when Jim Irvine was the nouveau riche hustler that came in.

MORRIS: How old is Dick O'Neill? …

CORY: [pause] Late fifties, mid to late fifties.

MORRIS: Because Father Irvine, or Irving, just wasn't making or functioning as a tycoon, like in the twenties and thirties.

CORY: But these people, the O'Neill family, Dick's great-grandfather came out here in the Civil War.

MORRIS: Very interesting.

CORY: The O'Neill meatpackers, which are descendants of the family, have plants in Fresno, San Diego, and they have had their property without a mortgage on it for a long period…

MORRIS: You met him first in the Salinger campaign?

CORY: I may have met him in Dick Hanna's campaigns prior to that…

MORRIS: He'd been interested in politics…?

CORY: He'd been around, yes, but he was a hundred dollar contributor, something like that. And Dick likes to help everybody, Democrats. He can get—if he feels comfortable with you—the capacity to do more. I doubt that he will ever, given the amount of heat that he took for that contribution, will ever do that again.

MORRIS: Did he also take an interest in the campaign, in putting on your strategy meetings?

CORY: Yes, that's what Dick likes, and that's why, I guess, a friendship developed where he wanted to build the Democratic party, in Orange County, during the time that Dick O'Neill was interested in financing [campaigns], very indirectly, because he never wanted people to know… [A]nd that's the thing a lot of people don't understand… [T]hey think there's something sinister. It's just the same reason people give to charities anonymously. The Democratic party is Dick O'Neill's charity. It's the same psychology. He is bothered by reading about his contributions in the press.

O’NEILL BUILDS THE OC DEMOCRATIC PARTY

But we worked with him about what ideas would work, what ideas wouldn't, what kind of people… We started getting people running for nonpartisan offices who were Democrats who we could build into credible Democratic candidates, getting them funded for city council, school board, supervisor, those kinds of things.

MORRIS: That's local, too, city and county.

CORY: Yes, that's because you had to do that, because of the partisan thing, that they had to be nonidentified because of the Republican edge. Then you could create a persona that was acceptable, that you could bring people along with this. The same format that the Republican party, as the minority party statewide, always uses. Nothing magic about that.

MORRIS: Well, the Republicans for a while … they were using a special districts approach, putting a lot of effort into electing Republicans in certain legislative districts.

CORY: But they start … they recognize they are a minority party.

MORRIS: You still say they are a minority party? You don't…

CORY: Sure.

MORRIS: …think the demographics and the registrations make it different?

CORY: …[T]here are still less Republicans than Democrats statewide. Now, it's narrowed, and a lot of that narrowing is just returning to the pre-Watergate phenomenon. But nationwide, there are more Democrats than Republicans. The Democrats are more willing to vote for a Republican than Republicans are willing to vote for Democrats. And that's a whole other issue.
   But we use that basic format of getting people elected to places where they could get elected, nonpartisan offices.
   And that makes them credible, and puts them on the ballot. You've got a choice of four people you've never heard of, one of whom has been on the school board, and the other guy's a janitor, and the other guy's a store clerk. Who are you going to vote for? You're going to vote for the guy who was on the school board.

MORRIS: This is done in your local Democratic elections.

CORY: Yes, that's what we did in Orange County, … just so we have more Democrats, more credible candidates in the state. We would find we would have people that did not appear to be quality candidates. There's nothing you can really say about them.

MORRIS: Would you go around looking for people, to encourage them to run for the school board, or something like that?

THE O’NEILL (CELLA, HARBER) FARM SYSTEM

CORY: Yes, we’d sit down, and you’d work with Dick O'Neill, Lou Cella, Fred Harber, and you'd go out and you'd find—going through the list of particular, nice-looking lawyers insurance agents—try to go through the registration files, finding out which ones were Democrats, then talking to them, finding out what kind of people they really were, and then you'd start encouraging them, and then you'd end up with an obligation of running their campaigns and supporting them.
   That grew to the point where Orange County had a Democratic registration at one point, and that was Dick O'Neill. He basically made that happen, and Lou Cella.

MORRIS: And none of the surrounding counties were watching, interested, or…?

CORY: The bottom line was that when you had Dick and Lou there, if you got to the point where you needed some money to make something happen, they'd put it out. You don't have that in other places. They would not put it up.

MORRIS: Outside of Orange County…

CORY: No, they would not put it up early. It was not a thing where they would just say, “Here's the money, go do it.” But if you were struggling, and … everybody was working, and something was happening, he had people… [Y]ou could organize and get thirty people to go out and walk door to door to register Democrats. … Dick saw that organized, but you needed … “How are we going to get them out next weekend!” “Well, we're going to have to feed them lunch.” There would be the money there to do that [with O’Neill].
   Those are the kinds of things that if you don't have those kinds of supporters that will do that … if they do it too early, then everybody becomes an executive, and the money gets frittered away. And Dick understood that. Dick wouldn't play in that game. He'd walk away from that kind of thing. But over a sustained period of time, and the same kind of support would come where Howard Adler, who was a—I've known Howard since he was a high school student. He was the Democratic chairman of the central committee for Orange County for a long time.
   But you look at Howard, who worked in the Dick Hanna operation—he worked on Dick's staff, but he worked hard for the Democratic party. When he had a business opportunity and he needed help, Dick would give him help. Howard's a wealthy man today, but he'd worked hard; he's earned that money. But Dick was the kind of person who would support that kind of person, because he knew him in politics, and knew him to be a hard working and honest person.
   Somebody could come to Dick with a better financial business deal, who just wanted Dick's money, and Dick wouldn't even talk to him, because Dick would not make a stupid financial investment … he and Dick and Howard invested in various deals together, but Dick didn't do that to make money. He did it to help somebody who didn't have money.

MORRIS: Somebody he knew and loved.

Tom Fuentes' pals

CORY: Yes, Frank Barbero, a lawyer down there [OC] who was running for office—same kind of relationship. Time and time again, you'd see Dick do those kinds of things. And the other side of it, in terms of why it's an O'Neill charity… I've only had Dick O'Neill talk to me about one political issue, government issue, all the time I've known him, where he was trying to be an advocate of a position.
I can recall, when I was first elected to the legislature, they had passed the constitutional amendment on the Williamson Act and I kept expecting Dick to read the thing. And I was sitting on the Rev and Tax Committee. I finally called … Dick and said, “Dick, next week the Williamson Act is up for committee.” And he said, “What's that?” I said, “Well, that's the thing on the ballot, we have the ballot thing that said that agricultural property could be taxed differently than highest and best use.”
   “Oh, yeah? What about it?”
   “I haven't heard from you or anybody in the company about what your views were on that, and I just thought I'd check in.” This was as a legislator, not as controller.
   And he said, “Wait a minute, Ken, is somebody from the company talking to you about that?”
   I said, “No, that's just the point, nobody has contacted me.”
   He said, “Well, Ken, if anybody from the company calls you, tell them to stick it.” [Laughter]
   I said, “What do you mean?”
   He said, “Look, I paid my taxes last year, I'll pay my taxes next year. If the legislature wants to charge me less taxes, sure, I'd rather pay less taxes than more. But it's irrelevant, it's deducted from the federal, and I frankly could care less. And if anybody from the company is lobbying you to do something, I want to know.”
   So, I had that conversation with him. Several years later, he arrived in Sacramento unannounced, by himself. [Samuel] Sam Yorty was mayor of Los Angeles, and had imposed a local sales tax on drinks served in bars. It was known as the "tipplers tax" by the press.
   Dick was outraged. Dick moved up here [in Sacramento] and he stayed in my house for about two, three months, during the legislative session. (I had a house here in town.) He lobbied a bill through to preclude … make it crystal clear… [S]omebody went to court saying it was unconstitutional for the city to impose a sales tax. L.A. city put in a statute authorizing it, and Dick was up here trying to kill [that] bill.
   That was the only thing that he's ever asked my support on. He was dead right on the issue, philosophically. It was an illegal tax. The court held it was an illegal tax. It's foolishness to have those kinds of local options on taxes as a matter of tax policy, in my judgment. So it was very easy for me to support [the preclusion bill].

MORRIS: Was he a gentleman that liked a bourbon?

CORY: Well, whether he does or not, Dick has owned a lot of bars.
   He owned at that time, in the mid-Wilshire area of Los Angeles, he owned the Blarney Castle, the Black Forest, the HMS Bounty, and the Bull and Bush.

MORRIS: Sounds very international.

CORY: Those tended to be supper-club, after-work, kinds of bars in the insurance area, and the city boundaries jog around, and there are places across the street that were in the county that didn't charge. A guy getting off of work had an option of going into the Bull and Bush and getting a 6 percent tax laid on his drink, or going across the street, and not having a charge.
   I remember asking Dick, I said, “Dick, how much money do you make on the restaurants?” Here was a man that, without embarrassing him and disclosing the confidence, his personal income was millions each year. And he avoided income by hiring professionals to keep him from making money. He still had millions coming in each year, and he was making maybe fifty thousand… dollar profit in each one of those bars.
   He said, “You know, if we absorb the tax, that turns me from making a fifty thousand dollar profit to being in the red.”
   “Okay, but why do you care? Why do you care if you lose twelve thousand [dollars], or make fifty, when you've got ten million coming in? I mean, three months of your life with this? I mean, really!”
   He said, “Well, everybody in my family bitches about me owning these bars and restaurants. If they're losing money, it's really hard to justify. But if they're making money, it's okay.” That's the only issue Dick O'Neill has ever leaned on me on. … But that's O'Neill.

MORRIS: Did he enjoy it?

CORY: Oh, yes, he likes the action. He thought what he was doing was right, and he really identifies with the common man. I mean, to him it was the concept of the little bar owner and the guy buying a drink… But, yes, he enjoyed it.

MORRIS: And he never has found another issue that he took that seriously?

CORY: There were things that he cares about, and money is close to irrelevant to him. It's a burden to him. It's a problem. He does not want to be used for his money. [S]ubsequent employees of his … have profit centers who are all trying to trade on it, but Dick's never spoken to me about this, he's never hassled me, and when I've found where legislation has gone through that would be beneficial to them, it's never been O'Neill that did it. And that's not that he put people up to it, it's just that O'Neill would not do that to people.
   But other people who don't know Dick that well … --if an employee came in and asked me for something, they would think that they had to do it for Dick. If they really knew Dick…

MORRIS: Is it possible that some of his employees or associates…

CORY: --without consulting with him, had the use of his name for their own purposes?
   Sure, but I mean, it's de minimis [trivial]. But people wanted to know what was Dick O'Neill going to get out of it. …O'Neill wanted the action, he wanted someone from Orange County [e.g., Ken Cory] to be a statewide officeholder. He wanted to force the Democratic party to be recognized.

CELLA EQUALLY SELFLESS

MORRIS: Is Dr. Cella equally enlightened and disinterested? [At about the time of this interview, Cella was imprisoned for embezzlement.]

CORY: Yes, he was even a little harsher in his standards. He has always stated to me that he wanted me to always vote against any issue that affected him. He … made it very clear I was up here to vote against him. “If I have something that affects me, and I can't get it passed without your vote, I shouldn't get it passed—” He was just cold turkey.
   O'Neill … would just be offended if somebody, like the Williamson Act [mandatory disclosing of info in hostile takeovers], somebody was pushing you from his company without him knowing it. Then he'd be upset. But if you voted against O'Neill, that would bother him, because you were his friend and you shouldn't vote against him. But he doesn't have anything up here [in Sacramento], so he doesn't care.
   Cella was aware that he might have issues [e.g., bills advantageous to his business dealings] up here. He made it very clear … “Do not vote for them, I'm your contributor; I don't need the grief; you don't need the grief. If it's meritorious, it will pass.”….

MORRIS: Yes, even in the medical business [“Doc” Cella’s office was in a hospital], he was in an area where there was a lot of state legislation and concern in those years. It's hard to avoid the appearance of…

CORY: Yes, actually, he was more aggressive on the other side.

MORRIS: So, did they have some ideas about how to transfer your success in developing visibility and credibility on a statewide basis?

CORY: Not really. I mean, they were interested in—their interests were very provincial. They were basically Orange County.

CORY, NEXUS OF CAMPAIGN STRATEGY BRILLIANCE

MORRIS: So, did you have some professional staff?

CORY: Basically, we developed and built our own. Various people who were involved were Arnold Forde and Bill Butcher….

MORRIS: You worked with [them] before?

CORY: Yes, Bill Butcher ran my first campaign [for OC Assemblyman, 1966]. Arnold Forde ran the campaign of the guy that thought he was going to get the [California Democratic Council] endorsement, and didn't.

MORRIS: This is on your controller's campaign, right?

CORY: No, … first assembly campaign [1964].

MORRIS: And Forde and Butcher worked again in '74…

CORY: --they were friends; they've always been I guess supporters, but they weren't running the campaign, I've never hired a campaign firm.

MORRIS: Really? Even in '74?

CORY: No, we did it ourselves. Now, you go around to some of the campaign firms that exist, [the belief there seems to be that?] Butcher-Forde [pioneers of the ethically-challenged approach to winning elections] were very much involved in my campaign.... Carl D'Agostino [notorious for his outrageous political consulting style] was my chief deputy, and he was working for Ford Aeronotronics … when I hired him to work in politics. He is a very bright, capable person. But I knew the fellow who ran the company called Braun Campaigns, Braun Associates, who run ballot propositions in L.A … The guy who runs that, [well-known Public Affairs Strategist] Doug Jeffe, used to be my administrative assistant.

MORRIS: So you worked with everybody in the business, pretty much.

CORY: They basically worked for me, and we ran campaigns and then they'd go off on their own and start their own companies. [Cory seems inclined to take a fair amount of credit for the methods and tactics of these various, well-known political advisors/consultants.]

MORRIS: This was when you were in the administrative office in the assembly?

CORY: No, they worked for me in the assembly, and as Controller. Doug Jeffe was my district office administrative assistant. He was my administrative assistant as caucus chairman. Carl D'Agostino was consultant to the committee, Joint Committee on Public Domain, that I was chairman of. Bill was my first administrative assistant, when I was first elected to the legislature [in 1964]. … Bill Butcher and I were married to sisters. Bill and I grew up in the same hometown, a vast while ago.

MORRIS: Those are really very close ties.

CORY: And so, I don't…

MORRIS: What you're saying is that they learned a lot from you, and that over the years you've developed…

CORY: No, we've learned a lot together. I was able to raise money, I have contributed to some of the campaign techniques. I used to run campaigns for a living myself, so we developed some things, and we were able to make sure that the money was well spent. Braun Campaigns basically grew out of that [1972] Watson initiative [to lower property tax] campaign.

Writing OC history: the Bold and the Ruthless

     IT'S BECOMING CLEAR—to me, a slow learner, I guess—that, at least in our benighted county, the phenomenon, in politics, of brazenly deceptive but highly effective “smear” campaign tactics—including last minute (i.e., impossible to counter) attack mailers—was seized upon and perfected by the one-time consulting firm of Butcher-Forde—and by Butcher and Forde considered independently, both before and after that firm. That is, insofar as one dons one’s historian’s cap and approaches the last half-century of OC political campaigning, asking: How did we get here?—well, that answer, more or less, is these guys, William Butcher (now William Lord-Butcher) and Arnold Forde.
     A crucial aspect of Butcher-Forde’s “success,” it seems, was an early embrace of computer technologies—technologies that are not in themselves dubious, but, in the hands of Butcher-Forde, powerfully magnified their clients’ efforts to gain control of government and to shape it for the sake of their dubious and anti-democratic ends.
     But this kind of campaigning, to be effective in transforming the landscape, takes sustained money. Starting around 1970, developers provided that key ingredient. The combo of big developer money and no-holds-barred campaigning was the new animal that metamorphosed Orange County into the hyper-developed and politically nasty place that it is.

     And again, donning one’s historian’s cap in hopes of identifying a meaningful narrative, with beginning, middle, and end—it appears that one will not go too far wrong in starting with the 1969-1970 campaign of Ron Caspers to challenge and replace 5th District Supervisor and Republican Alton Allen. At least as far as the Republican establishment was concerned, Caspers seemed to come from out of nowhere. But he had money. More specifically, he had “Dick and Doc” money. And he had the talents (the ruthless and clever methods) of Arnold Forde (and later Butcher-Forde) plus the uncommon energy and ambition of young Tom Fuentes. Most importantly—and here, I believe, Fred Harber is the crucial figure—Caspers had a vision of how county government should operate. That vision was actualized after his 1970 election, when “Caspers made the contacts and set the ground rules for developer participation in the grand scheme of patronage carried to an exponential degree” (Tom Rogers).
     I’m sure there are many people who understand what I do not: the complex or convoluted sense in which this scheme or these schemes were masterminded. Richard O’Neill (the “Dick” of “Dick and Doc”) was a rich landowner interested in development; but he was also a Democrat who sought to further the success of his party and its philosophies. I have trouble seeing him as intent on establishing a “grand scheme of patronage” unless it was, in his mind, ultimately in the service of Democratic ends. [A friend who has long worked for Democratic candidates seems to disagree; he insists that O'Neill was not at all idealogical; he was simply pro-development.]
     His partner, Louis Cella, was a Republican, but, like Caspers, Cella didn’t seem particularly interested in furthering any particular political philosophy. He was a kind of grifter who got in over his head. Many, of course, have wondered if there were people behind Cella and all that money he controlled. The mob? Who knows.
     What was Fred Harber’s role in all of this? There’s plenty of evidence that he was the brains behind two or three or more supervisors, pulling the strings. He was brilliant, we’re told—certainly Cella thought so—but it seems clear that, like Cella, he was also dirty. I’ve traced Harber’s history back into the late fifties, and, though he seemed always to have an interest in Democratic politics, he was pretty consistently near or in settings of graft and corruption. He’s the one person in this saga who seemed to view himself as some sort of “mastermind,” and he evidently welcomed being seen as such. (See Puppets and Puppeteers.)

     Lobbyists, we know, have a bad reputation; it is such that they would seem to fit right into this world of schemes and quid pro quo deals. Whatever the fate of the grand schemes mentioned above, it seems clear that several persons involved in the early days of our saga—Fuentes, Lyle Overby, Frank Michelena, et al.—went on to engage in lobbying most foul.
     I started my inquiries into this saga because I was intrigued by Tom Fuentes, a trustee in our district. He was a ruthless man who once wielded great power in our county as chairman of the OC GOP. Tom was a guy who always seemed to keep his eye on the larger chess game of local politics and who thus endlessly involved himself in machinations and schemes relative to the remnants of a spoils system he long ago constructed. In my opinion, starting with his chairmanship of the OC GOP in the mid-80s, Tom maintained the grand scheme of patronage initiated by his mentor in the early 1970s. But he did so on behalf of the Republican Party, and especially its right wing. (See What is a Repuglican?)

     But, like O’Neill (at least, as I understand him), Tom was also, in some sense, a true believer in his particular political philosophy. That’s a big part of what made him fascinating. For much of his history, especially his early history, seemed to stand in stark contrast with that philosophy. He was a profoundly contradictory figure.
     Tom noisily stood for principles such as, “Thou shalt not speak ill of other Republicans.” Accordingly, he stood by Republican incumbents. But his start in politics was his substantial part in an effort to defeat an incumbent Republican, Alton Allen—a Republican that Caspers and company spoke seriously “ill of.”
     Fuentes could not abide rogue Republicans: consider his treatment of Republicans who sought to challenge incumbent Republican office holders (see Guiding with an iron hand). But the whole Caspers emergence of 1969-1970 was a rogue project, relative to the party. It utterly bewildered and confounded the Republican establishment of that time.
     Fuentes was known for his intolerance of Democrats—even of “moderate” Republicans, whom he dismissed as “RINOs” or worse. But, between 1970 and 1974, he was a key player in Team Caspers, which included card-carrying Democrats (e.g., Fred Harber) and was linked to efforts to promote and elect Democratic office holders (such as Ralph Clark and Robert Battin).

* * *

     I recently came across some old news articles that help fill out our story.

Wenke

     1. PLEASURES OF THE HARBER. In “Wenke Says He May Sue Over Letter” (LA Times, June 22, 1972), Republican supervisorial candidate William Wenke expressed his intention to sue Robert Battin’s campaign manager of the 1972 primary campaign. Battin’s manager was Fred Harber.
     That’s because Wenke had been “the target of a last-minute primary campaign letter linking him to school busing in Santa Ana….” Wenke, said the Times, “was accused of helping to get pro-busing candidates elected to the Santa Ana school board.”
     According to the Times, “The letter was linked to … Harber, campaign manager for Supervisor Battin, by two former aides to Battin….” (See Puppets and Puppeteers.)
     Wenke had decided that a lawsuit was his only recourse. But he didn’t want money:

“…I make this proposal,” he added. “If you (Harber) will corroborate the statements … that you, in fact, were behind the school busing smear letter, you may consider this a release from any action against you.”

     Harber responded with utter confidence and defiance: “If he wants to file a lawsuit, let him go ahead.” He added:

Quite frankly, I don’t see where school busing is an issue in this campaign since the board of Supervisors doesn’t have anything to do with that….”

     Well, yeah. That's what makes this smear particularly foul!

Segerstrom

     2. THE BOLD & THE RUTHLESS. In “Redistricting Eliminates 4 Potential Battin Foes” (Oct. 29, 1971), the Times reports “redistricting” actions that turn out to be highly convenient for a certain supervisor:

     All of next year’s known potential election opponents of Board of Supervisors Chairman Robert Battin were eliminated by this week’s supervisorial redistricting, detailed maps of the new boundaries showed Thursday.
     The maps … showed that three rumored candidates … were wiped out by shifts of territory from Battin’s 1st District to Supervisor Ralph Clark’s 4th District.
     The residence of a fourth possible opponent … was transferred from the 1st District to Supervisor Ronald Caspers’ 5th District.
     …[That fourth opponent’s] transfer was made public Wednesday when [he] appeared before the board to plead for revision to restore all of his city … to the 1st District.
     That effort failed when Battin, Caspers and Supervisor William Phillips approved the redistricting map as submitted.
. . .
     But it was not until detailed maps of the changes became available that it was known that the population shifts also had eliminated both attorney William Wenke and rancher Henry Segerstrom, both of whom live in the north Santa Ana area.
     Their census tract … was shifted to the 4th District as a finger jutting into the 1st District.
     The change appeared to be politically fortunate for the board’s chairman, but Battin’s executive aide said no thought was given to the residences of potential candidates when the revised district lines were drawn.
. . .
     The change also affected the district residence of two other influential persons connected with county government. Both Dr. Louis Cella Jr. and Fred Harber, close associates of Battin since his election in 1968, live in the area and are now within Clark’s district.

Butcher/Forde, c. 1982

When solicitations are threats (and, as always, Tom Fuentes was there)

     An Orange County developer, actively seeking County Planning commission approval of a rezoning project, claims he was once approached following a public hearing by an appointed county official.
     The official, who has since resigned his position, suggested that one developer might want to buy two tickets to a high-priced political dinner for a local officeholer.
     “I told him to go to hell and walked away,” the developer said in a recent interview. “The next week, our deal was turned down by the commission.
     “I could never prove that the two things were related but there was sure a damn strong inference that they were.”

—LA Times, 1974

Dorothy Fortune

     THE SETTING: OLD GUARD SANS UNION: By some time in 1998,* control over the union was back in the hands of decent faculty, but the new leadership soon found union coffers to be empty. Attempts at locating and acquiring Old Guard financial records were brazenly thwarted. As I recall (and here my memory is hazy), we never really got a clear accounting of where all the money went and who exactly controlled it. (I’ve been told by union insiders that CTA/CCA failed to aggressively assess Old Guard leadership because Sherry Miller-White, the union front-person, was African-American.)
     Though the Old Guard no longer controlled the union, it wasn’t quite dead. During the election of 1998, they managed to help elect two new right-wingers: Don Wagner and Nancy Padberg. (The "board majority" grew to five.)
     By the election of 2000, these rogue unionists were still somewhat organized. One wonders if the resourceful Mr. Tom Fuentes—for he had just arrived on the scene—did not take steps to enhance their viability. They had money—one wonders where it came from—and they backed the “slate” of Don Davis (against Lang), Dorothy Fortune (against William Shane), Tom Fuentes (against Bob Loeffler), and John Williams (against Bill Hochmuth). 
     Lang/Shane/Loeffler/Hochmuth billed themselves as the “Clean Slate.”
     Of the Clean Slate, only Lang prevailed. Unsurprisingly, all of the winners of the 2000 election, Lang included, went into it with the powerful “incumbent” advantage.
     Fuentes, the long-time chairman of the Orange County GOP, had been appointed to the board only four months earlier (in July) when the Holocaust-denying trustee Steve Frogue announced his intention of resigning.
     At the time, observers smelled a rat. They smelled accurately.

* * *

     KOPFSTEIN'S CURIOUS LETTER. I’ve come across an old LA Times article (“South O.C. Seats Have 10 Trading Hostilities,” October 31, 2000) from just before the election of 2000. It was written by our old pal Jeff Gottlieb, who has since made a name for himself (Pulitzer!) covering such stories as the Bell scandal. 
     Jeff reported:

Jeff Gottlieb

     …[T]here have been nonstop battles between the administration and the faculty, with disputes often ending up in court and the district typically being ordered to back off and pay its opponents' legal fees.
     This history sets the stage for the current contentious campaign.
     For example, four single-page anonymous fliers are circulating, filled with misinformation and inflammatory language that portray the Clean candidates as supporting domestic-partner benefits and a gay and lesbian studies program.
     These have been sent out with no return address, stuffed in mailboxes and even faxed to some people. It is difficult to tell how widely they have been distributed.
     The candidates named in the mailers said the subject is not even an issue in the campaign. Board President Padberg, who is part of the board majority, agreed. "I have no knowledge this [domestic partners] is going to be coming to the board," she said, adding it won't be up for discussion for at least two years, when a new contract is negotiated with teachers.
. . .
     Another flier, from a group identifying itself as "Conservative Americans for College Excellence," was mailed to residents of Laguna Woods. The flier endorses "true conservative American candidates" Davis, Williams, Fortune and Fuentes. "Don't let your education tax dollars be diverted from [classes for seniors] to pay for Same-Sex Domestic Partner Benefits," the flier states.
     This is not the first time that fliers with references to gay issues have become part of a campaign in the college district.
     In 1996, the teachers' union spent nearly $40,000 on a slick campaign piece that attacked first-time candidate Lang and his slate of candidates for using "your education tax dollars to pay for seminars and conferences to educate participants about the Gay & Lesbian Lifestyle." A more liberal leadership took over the union in 1998, and the organization's endorsements changed accordingly.
     Hostility between conservatives and liberals within the union continues.
     After the change in leadership, the California Teachers Assn. sent a team to investigate a number of allegations, including that money raised by the union to support political candidates had been mismanaged.
     The leader of the audit team, David Lebow, said the continuing probe centers on what happened to money collected for the union's political action committee at the rate of $15,000 to $30,000 a year. When the union leadership changed, the departing officers said there was no money left in the account and closed it down. Most of the former union presidents who controlled the fund have refused to cooperate or to turn over records, Lebow said, adding that the issue may be taken to court.
     One former union president, Robert Kopfstein, did provide investigators with the information he had available, Lebow said.
     Kopfstein, a professor at Saddleback, has since become treasurer of the South Orange County Taxpayers for Quality Education, and is backing incumbent trustees Fortune, Fuentes and Williams.

     What comes next really caught my eye:

Mr. Kopfstein

     On invitations for a Sept. 29 fund-raiser, Kopfstein added a handwritten note to 20 vendors who had done business with the district. "We hope that you can help support the campaigns of these incumbent trustees who, in the past, have shown support for your business," he wrote.
     District Chancellor Cedric Sampson said one vendor complained the note was inappropriate, but Sampson said he [did] not think there was anything illegal about it.
     Kopfstein defended the note. "What I'm saying here is this is someone with a connection with Saddleback College and they should be concerned about the trustees who are elected," he said. "If they're doing business, there's a vested interest in the school."

     Presumably, the vendor judged the solicitation to be inappropriate because it could easily be viewed as a threat: pay up or we’ll give the contract to somebody else.
     Such veiled threats are familiar in politics—where the citizenry are clueless and the regulations are lax. Like in OC.

* * *

     1974: WORRIES ABOUT SPECIAL INTERESTS. Back in 1974, just months before the general election (in Orange County), the LA Times’ Don Smith wrote a lengthy piece about fund raising (“Fund Raising: A Basic Necessity of Political Life,” Aug 11, 1974) and the unseemly actions that campaign finance pressures yielded. It started with the story that heads this post: an OC developer tells of being approached by a county official who suggested the developer might want to buy tickets for a certain office holder's political fund-raiser. The developer refused.  The next week the developer's plan was rejected by the county.
     Smith marveled at the amounts that some incumbent candidates for non-partisan offices had collected for the recent June primary. For instance, incumbent supervisor Caspers had collected $196,264—for a job that made only $15K a year.
     Smith quotes a visitor from Chicago, a town notorious for corruption:

     “In Chicago,” she explained, “you know who you have to pay and how much to get something done. Here, there is no price tag. They hit you for anything they can get.”

     One campaign contributor whom Smith interviewed said,

     “You give,” he snorted, “because you know there is a contract coming up. If you don’t, you might not be considered. We don’t want all of it but we do expect to get our fair share. Contributions are one way to make sure the guy remembers your name.”

     At the time, Tom Fuentes was an aide to Ron Caspers, who had just disappeared in a boating incident off the coast of Baja.
     Fuentes explained Team Caspers' reliance on $1,000-a-plate or $500-a-plate testimonial dinners:

     “We used some very special invitations for those,” Fuentes explained. “One time, we sent a dozen roses to each person on the list with the invitation included in the gift card. Another time, we used a special parchment invitation with a red ribbon around it.”
     The key attraction for such events is a gourmet meal in a high-quality restaurant.
     For example, Caspers’ last such affair, which drew 21 guests, was held in the Westgate Plaza Hotel in San Diego. Guests were flown there on a chartered jet from Orange County.

     Smith spoke with one contributor who was asked to sell ten tickets for an expensive affair. By that time, everyone had already written a check or two, and so he only sold a few. He purchased the rest out of his own pocket:

     Asked what would have happened if he had simply returned [the tickets] unsold, he simply shrugged.
     “Probably nothing,” he replied. “We had contributed to all the other supervisors also, so one vote might not have hurt us. On the other hand, if the guy got mad at us, he could have blocked us from getting a contract in this district. So I ate the $500 and let it go.”

     Once again, our old friend Frank Michelena, a powerful OC lobbyist, popped up. According to Smith, he donated $1,000 to each of the incumbent supervisors (on behalf of a client). And he personally “tossed in a total of $7,000 to Caspers’ campaign and another $1,000 to Supervisor Ralph Clark.” (Caspers and Clark, of course, were in Richard O’Neill and Louis Cella’s stable.)
     Why did he do that?

     “In my business, it means a lot—as well as a lot of money for some of my clients—to be able to pick up the phone and get right through. ¶ “Someone who isn’t so well-known will also get through but it may take a little time to do it. With the costs involved in developing and building today, that quick access can save a lot of money for my clients.”

     Evidently, the OC Grand Jury was concerned about then-current campaign practices:

     In its farewell report, the jury contended that potential contributors are often harassed and claimed that at least one large contributor actually leaves the county before an election to avoid solicitations.
     The report called on county officials to stop soliciting funds from firms doing business with the county….

     Those solicitations, of course, could be viewed as veiled threats. No doubt, often, that’s just what they were.

* * *

     BENTS' ALLEGATIONS OF "STRONG-ARMING." Less than three months before the above article, Smith reported a curious press conference held by one of Supervisor Ron Caspers’ Republican challengers for the upcoming primary (“Fund-Raising Tactics by Caspers Criticized,” May 31, 1974):

     …[S]upervisorial candidate Marcia Bents charged Thursday that Supervisor Ronald Caspers has “strong-armed” firms into contributing to his campaign.
     Mrs. Bents, referring to Caspers’ latest financial report showing more than $222,000 in contributions, said the firms made contributions “because they were afraid not to give.” These firms are doing business with the county or seeking county permits, she said.

     Naturally, Team Caspers was there to rebut Bents’ charges. As usual, Team Caspers meant, not Caspers himself, but Tom Fuentes. (As we’ve seen, Tom seemed to be much more than an executive aide.) According to Smith, Fuentes asserted that Bents’ charges had “no element of truth.”

     “They are only an indication of her own floundering campaign,” Fuentes said, “and are unsupported by facts. [Evidently, he did not provide any facts.] The people and firms who contribute to Ron do so because they support what he is doing.”
     At a courthouse press-room conference, Mrs. Bents handed newsmen a list of 26 firms and individuals who have donated or pledged $1,000 or more to Caspers’ campaign. All of these donors are involved in subdivisions, zone changes, variance use permits, tracts, special projects or contracts with the county.
     “…some of these firms have expressed to me, privately, that they felt they were being forced into making substantial contributions to Caspers’ campaign.”

     Bents also presented a written signed statement by former Caspers aide H. Ronald Jones in which the latter states that “he had worked on county time to address and stuff envelopes for a Caspers’ testimonial dinner….”
     Further, “Jones charged that he had also used county time and a county car to drive to Los Angeles County to pick up materials for Fuentes’ campaign for the County Republican Central Committee.”
     –Evidently, the latter is contrary to county policy.

* * *

     TOM FUENTES, BULLY: As Orange County GOP chairman, Fuentes had become notorious for strongly discouraging challenges to Republican incumbents, no matter how odious. Some of these people reported that Fuentes had actually threatened them:

     "He said my business would be ruined, and that my husband's business would be ruined," said [former Superior Court Judge Judith] Ryan, a challenger to U.S. Rep. Robert K. Dornan for his seat in 1992. "I was taken aback." (Guiding With an Iron Hand, Times, July 11, 1996)

     The more you look at it the more the fabric that is Orange County Republican politics—where it concerns the late Tom Fuentes—is surprisingly homogeneous.

~ ~ ~

     *BACKGROUND: During the SOCCCD trustees campaign of 1996, a group of phenomenally unprincipled and secretive faculty—I dubbed them the "Old Guard"—controlled the faculty union and its substantial PAC money. These union leaders (Sherry Miller-White, Sharon MacMillan, and the guys for whom they fronted: Mike Runyan, Tom Carroll, et al.) supported the trustee candidacies of “fiscal conservatives” John Williams, Steven Frogue, Dorothy Fortune, and Don Davis. They printed and mailed a homophobic and stunningly deceptive flier to persuade local Republicans to defeat the slate of benign non-union (P.I.E.) candidates, including Dave Lang. (Confused? Lang “switched sides” in about 2005.)
     The Old Guard’s crew of Neanderthals (except for Davis) prevailed, and thus it was that, starting in December of 1996, the district was thrust into the “board majority” era, a period of incompetence, decline, venality, and embarrassment.
     Through the majority’s first years, union leadership steadfastly supported “their” board members, even as the latter brought the district to near fiscal disaster (we were placed on the "watch" list), endless accreditation difficulties, 1st Amendment lawsuits, and very unflattering news stories.
     (Motive? The Old Guard trustees wanted help paying for their campaigns, and, as near as anyone could tell, the Old Guard had struck a “quid pro quo” deal with these trustees to secure faculty contracts that benefited some at the expense of others.)
     Gradually (by 1998), horrified rank and file faculty took back control of their union, despite the hapless CTA/CCA.

The corruption files: early seventies (Fuentes, Michelena, et al.)

     In the early seventies, there seemed to be a recognition in the OC that the county was entering an era of increasing corruption or quasi-corruption—which, of course, it had done, especially with regard to county government. Perhaps no one at the time imagined how bad things would become:
     “From 1974-77, an eye-popping 43 Orange County political figures were indicted, among them, two congressmen, three supervisors and the county assessor, according to the California Journal” (Jeffe, 1996).
     And Tom Fuentes was there, in Hinky Town, pretty much at ground zero.
     Lots of that corruption and criminality concerned “Dick and Doc” (Richard O’Neill and Dr. Louis Cella) and their stable of pols, including many Democrats and some Republicans. It is entirely possible that Ronald Caspers, another Dick & Doc pol, was "spared" from indictment the hard way: by his and Harber's mysterious 1974 deaths, along with eight others, off the coast of Baja. 
     (On the other hand, some say that incident took away the very people who could have prevented DA Cecil Hicks' prosecutions.)

Louis Cella

     THE NEW BOARD MAJORITY. One aspect of the aforementioned recognition was some worried talk about “lobbyists” and their influence on government officials. Consider, for instance, Evan Maxwell’s “Lobbyists: Dealers in Trust and Compromise” (LA Times, 2/20/72). In that article, an anonymous OC city councilman seems pretty steamed about the emerging influence of lobbyists; he said, “There is something unclean about somebody [i.e., a lobbyist] who uses the trust of a public official to sell him a project…A lobbyist has to be a prostitute. He sells his trust to the highest bidder.”
     (Pace prostitutes!)
     But, in that article, there were also plenty of Orange Countians defending lobbyists. One professional lobbyist that Maxwell interviewed, Chip Cleary, rejected the assumption that there is any conflict between the public interest and the interests of the lobbyist’s typical client. And if a conflict were to come up, he said, “My advocacy would be on the side of the public interest. Our own self-interest, all of us, lies with the public interest, not any selfish private interest…Our interests are all connected.”
     I do believe that people were more trusting forty years ago and, perhaps, Mr. Cleary’s remarks weren’t then manifestly ridiculous to all, as they surely are today.
     The election of 1970 produced two new Supes: Ronald Caspers, who had wielded unprecedented amounts of money and remarkably devious and dishonorable tactics during the campaign, and Ralph Clark, another big spender. Both were tied to O’Neill/Cella/Harber.
     Dick and Doc had managed to seat one of their own on the BOS earlier, back in 1968—namely, the mavericky and loose-cannonish Robert Battin.
     A few months into the 1971 BOS, observers discerned a possible “basic philosophical shift” between the majority of Battin, Clark, and Caspers—Dick and Doc’s people—and the minority, the two old-timers: William J. Phillips (who joined the board in 1957) and David L. Baker (who joined in 1963). The new guys seemed to want to change things, and the old guard pushed back a bit.
     There didn’t seem to be widespread recognition yet of the actual unifying principle of the apparent Battin/Clark/Caspers block—namely, O’Neill/Cella/Harber and (at least on the part of Cella and Harber) an embrace of lucrative varieties of “pay to play” (bribes, shakedowns, etc.). With the exception of some political insiders, that recognition came later, I think. So people talked about the board as dysfunctional and divided, and the notion that there was a kind of vision ("selfish private interest") behind the majority’s movement for "change" was only a hazy and undefined theory. (See “Supervisors take stock after a stormy beginning,” LA Times, 3/21/71.)

Robert Battin

     A COMPARISON. Please excuse my parochialism—my political understanding, such as it is, grew out of my participation in battles, starting in 1996, within the South Orange County Community College District—but: 
     The new BOS “board majority” of 1971 really reminds me of the majority that emerged on the SOCCCD Board of Trustees (BOT) in December of 1996, which comprised Steve Frogue, John Williams, Teddi Lorch, and newcomer (and transitioning Democrat) Dorothy Fortune. Even though three of the four had been on the board for years, their attainment of majority block status at the end of 1996 inspired them to impose their crude “conservative” philosophy on the district, one that held no respect for how things had been done and the judgment of those who did them. This board wielded groundless skepticism or cynicism of faculty programs ("study abroad" programs in Costa Rica and later Cuba), routinely rejected the advice and urgings of administration, and imposed a clueless and ham-fisted reorganization on the district, the unfortunate consequences of which can still be felt today.
     The BOS of 1971 did similar things with similar arrogance. In the 1971 Times article, Battin is quoted as saying,

     “The old board was influenced by the traditional approach to things,” he explains. “They were more apt to look at things from the standpoint of whatever is good for big business was good for Orange County.” [See.] ¶ “This group will have a greater awareness of keeping Orange County as a desirable place to live, even if it means going against big business at times. [Battin acknowledged that there would be some 3/2 votes:] ¶ “The difference is that the majority will swing back and forth depending upon the issue involved,” he said. ¶ Asked why the board placed all county department heads on a 30-day employment basis until after budget time in July, Battin said it was because he feels all department heads should have their jobs examined closely.

     Of course, some observers (e.g., onetime OC GOP chair Tom Rogers) have suggested that, contrary to Battin’s progressive blather, the arrival of (especially) Caspers signaled the beginning of an era in which the interests of Orange Countians—in wise development, maintaining the county’s rural character—were systematically thwarted in favor of the interests of rich developers.
     Dick and Doc’s chief political advisor, Fred Harber, was tied to each of the three new majority Supes. In the Times article, Clark feels compelled to answer a question about pressures applied by outside groups by attempting to diminish Harber’s role in his recent campaign. (Why bring up that name?) Battin and Harber, of course, were very close. Earlier, I described an episode in which Battin felt compelled to make a public statement to the effect that he was not Fred Harber’s “puppet.” (He protested too much, methinks.) We know that Caspers and Harber became very close, though I’m not sure when that started. They seemed to be working very closely together at least by 1973 by I'm sure that happened earlier.
     ("In 1968, Robert Battin, a Santa Ana lawyer, won a 12-way race to become the first Orange County Democratic supervisor since the Depression. Much of the reason for his success was the financial backing of two wealthy Democratic activists, land developer Fred Harber and Santa Ana physician Lou Cella. ¶ Two years later, again with the backing of Cella and Harber, Ralph Clark became the board's second Democrat. Cella and Harber also helped Republican Ron Caspers that year. Ralph Diedrich became the board's third Democrat in 1972, also supported by Cella and Harber." —From "Board's clout peaked with controversial reign of Democratic coalition," Chris Knap, July 17, 1988, OC Register.)
     In any case, Harber was the brains (politically) of the Dick and Doc Show, and Caspers was in the Dick and Doc stable—certainly by 1969 (likely before that).

Tom Fuentes

     CURIOUS ADVOCATES OF CLEANER GOVERNMENT. Early in 1971, Battin made a move that, prima facie, was an effort to make county government cleaner, though I must confess that I regard this future jailbird's effort with unmitigated cynicism. Evidently, he requested some sort of “lobbyist registration” ordinance, but that inspired considerable debate on the board, though it appears that, in the end, the Supes scrambled variously to make themselves look like advocates of lobbyist registration. They could not, however, agree on the details.
     I found a 1972 article that describes the board as "delaying" a vote on a proposed registration ordinance ("Supervisors Delay Vote on Proposal to Register Lobbyists," 8/16/72) to consider "amendments creating a tough governmental code of ethics." Battin was noisily against any delay, and I suspect he hoped voters would read his haste and noise as commitment to clean government.
     Battin there cites the "Mile Square" bribery case as something that would have been prevented had his kind of ordinance been in effect. That's odd (or just shameless and bold), for it seems likely that Battin's "puppeteer," Fred Harber, was up to his eyeballs in the Mile Square doings. (In the course of the trial, the mayor of Westminster [and defendant], Derek McWhinney, was quoted as claiming that six people, including he and Harber, ran the County. Let's see: O'Neill, Cella, Harber, McWhinney—and two others. Who? [My guess: Michelena and Fuentes.] See here.)
     Curiously, Battin's ordinance got support from an unlikely character: Frank Michelena, a notorious and influential lobbyist who was very connected to Dick and Doc and Caspers. (You'll recall that, according to Tom Rogers, Tom Fuentes and Michelena worked together in the early seventies.)
     According to the article, Michelena "considered the ordinance a step forward for Orange County government." ¶ "It should be broader however," he added, "to cover not only those who work for pay but also those who lobby for political purposes."

     In an article that appeared over a year later ("County delays action on lobbyist measure," Times, 10/24/73), we learn that the lobbyist registration measure had still not been approved. The latest delay was caused by a "challenge to include provisions for 'honesty in government' as well."

     What a dysfunctional (or just corrupt?) crew.

     New Supervisor Ralph Diedrich (who, backed with big money, had defeated Phillips in '72) said he wanted "to study suggestions that county employes [sic], 'including supervisors,' also be required to report any gratuities or gifts they receive." 

     Diedrich, of course, would be an odd choice for "honest government" poster boy: he was later convicted of soliciting a bribe from a developer, among other things. (He resigned in 1979 and then served a prison term.)

     Once again, some Supes rejected Battin's proposal or at least its latest version. Battin then "charged that the other board members already had been influenced by lobbyists."

     (Battin was a bit of a hot head and loudmouth—a Democratic Don Wagner.)

     Once again, Frank Michelena magically emerges as a supporter of Battin's ordinance: "Michelena said the burden of registration should lie with the lobbyists and he argued against exempting attorneys."

     I don't know whatever became of the ordinance. I do know that, after the political scandals erupted in the mid-70s, Shirley Grindle pushed for a campaign reform ordinance, known as TINCUP (1978), but it has proven to be inadequate. In 2008, the OC grand jury recommended that TINCUP be updated. (Don't recall what happened next.)

     But get this: a year and a half ago, the "Orange County supervisors ... voted to remain the state's only large county without any kind of registration requirements for lobbyists" (See OC is still the Wild West for lobbyists, Voice of OC, 11/9/10).

     Good freakin' grief.

Ronald Caspers

      CASPERS' SPECIAL INVITATION. Back in early 1972, the head of a local anti-tax group—together with the Register’s lawyer—got a judge to issue a restraining order “on the use of county tax funds to pay for the one-day trip [to Sacramento] for county supervisors and department heads” (see “Court Blocks Funds for Sacramento Trip; County Officials Faced With Paying Own Costs,” Times, 4/7/72).
     The trip came about because of an invitation, sent out in early May by Supervisor Caspers, to attend the April opening of a county lobbying office in Sacramento. (I assume the office housed those hired by the county to influence state legislators. Presumably, this is a relatively wholesome form of lobbying.)
     A surprisingly large group was invited, though the core of invitees were Supervisors and department heads. This group was treated to plane travel and an expensive luncheon at the famously luxurious Firehouse Restaurant. On the menu: “two wines, beef tenderloin and strawberries in champagne for dessert.”
     Among the invited: Supervisor Robert Battin; his executive aid, Steve Polatnick; Medical Center Administrator Robert White; Gene White, administrative aide to Supervisor William Phillips; County Administrative Officer Robert Thomas; Board of Supervisors Chairman Ronald Caspers; Supervisor Phillips; County Assessor Andrew Hinshaw [who was convicted of accepting bribes in 1977]; Tax Collector Robert Citron; Recorder J. Wylie Carlyle; Harbors and Parks Director Kenneth Sampson; Probation Officer Margaret Grier; Public Information Officer Christine Galanis; Planning Director Forest Dickason; and Casper’s two executive aides, Tom Fuentes and Paul White. (Owing to the restraining order, several of these people did not actually attend. For many, the order was handed to them too late to prevent the trip/luncheon.)
     According to the April 7 Times article, “The new suit alleges that the use of tax funds for a trip to Sacramento to open the lobbying office was ‘an improvident expense.’”
     Maybe yes, maybe no. But it sure was interesting.
     Once again, Frank Michelena’s name comes up. According to the Times, he arranged for the lunch at the pricey restaurant. “Michelena is a governmental advocate in Orange County who once served as executive aides to Supervisor Williams Phillips and currently represents several clients before various county departments and the Board of Supervisors.”
     Why wouldn't a guy like that wine and dine these county officials? ('Cause it looks dishonest, is why.)
     That crazy "champagne strawberries" lunch idea sure sounds like something that Tom Fuentes dreamed up. And, of course, he was there.
     A week and a half later, there was a hearing in which several people testified. According to the Times (April 19) “Frank Michelena, owner of a public relations firm, said he volunteered to pay for the cocktail reception and wine served with the luncheon.”
     The judge indicated that he would make his decision within a few days.
     A week later, the judge essentially threw out the case. According to the Times (April 26),

     Superior Judge Kenneth Williams denied a request for a preliminary injunction aimed at preventing Orange County from using tax money to pay for county officers’ transportation to Sacramento and lunch at the opening of a new lobbying office. In denying the request, Judge Williams also dissolved a temporary restraining order, thus clearing the way for the county to pay the bills….

     Dang. Do you suppose Williams was responding to pressures? Gosh, I just don't know.

BATTIN: the "COALITION" HARBER'S "BRAINCHILD

OC Reg Feb 18 1976