Vol. XIV, No. 40
December 21, 2001

CANDIDATES JOCKEY FOR MARCH PRIMARY BALLOT

The December 7 filing deadline came and went with no surprises in the March primary election races for state controller and four seats on the State Board of Equalization.

The race for controller, considered second to the governor in importance when tax policy is at stake, has BOE Member Johan Klehs and former Silicon Valley dot-com executive Steve Westly vying for the Democratic nomination. On the Republican side, BOE Member Dean Andal and state Senator Tom McClintock are the leading contenders. W. Snow Hume, a Fullerton business controller, also seeks the GOP nomination. The controller sits as the fifth member of the BOE and as chair of the Franchise Tax Board. The incumbent, Kathleen Connell, cannot seek re-election because of term limits. Mr. Klehs and Mr. Andal also cannot seek third terms on the BOE.

The Secretary of State’s Office has until the close of business on December 27 to certify the official candidates’ list. However, at this writing (December 18), state election officials said the following have qualified as candidates in the four BOE districts:

District 1: Assembly Member Carole Migden of San Francisco is the lone Democrat seeking the post. Two Republicans, Mark Bendick, a corporation tax manager, and Max Woods, and engineer/entrepreneur, are running for their party’s nomination. Elizabeth Brierly, a business analyst from San Jose, has qualified as the Libertarian candidate. This district is heavily Democratic in voter registration and has been represented for seven years by Mr. Klehs.

District 2:  This Republican-leaning district has Assembly Member Bill Leonard of San Bernardino County running against Ted Costa, CEO of a Sacramento-based taxpayer organization, competing for the GOP nomination. There also are two Democrats on the ballot, Norman Angelo, an engineer-entrepreneur, and Tom Santos, a tax consultant. This district has been represented for the past seven years by Mr. Andal.

District 3: Incumbent Claude Parrish has two Republican primary opponents in this district that should elect a Republican every time. They are Emad Bakeer of Lakeside, elected member of a planning group, and Stephen Petruzzo, a BOE auditor in San Diego. Mary Christian-Heising of La Jolla is the only Democrat on the ballot. Also certified in the third district is Libertarian J.R. “Nobody” Graham. The author/security officer from Chula Vista will not be allowed to use “Nobody” on the ballot because he is not generally known as Nobody and it is not his legal name, said Melissa Warren, manager of the Candidates and Elections Program at the Secretary of State’s Office.

District 4: This is a Democrat district, and incumbent John Chiang has no competition for the nomination in March. A Burbank businessman, Glen Forsch, will be the Republican nominee. Kenneth Weissman has been certified as the Libertarian candidate in this race.

At the local level, many incumbent county assessors are unopposed, but there will be hotly contested races involving incumbents, particularly in the city and county of San Francisco and counties of San Bernardino and San Luis Obispo.  A number of veteran assessors have decided to retire, including California Assessors’ Association President John Winner of El Dorado County, who mentioned the fact that longtime assessors who opted not to seek re-election include, besides Mr. Winner himself, assessors from Kern, Fresno, Solano, Monterey and Stanislaus counties. Key assessor races shaping up are:

EL DORADO.  Three candidates are seeking the post that has been held by Mr. Winner. They are Tim Holcomb, assistant county assessor; Terrence Tawney, an assessment systems manager, and Bill Vandegrift, a property values analyst.

FRESNO.  Four candidates are on the ballot seeking to succeed William Greenwood. They are Chuck Brough, a chief appraiser/educator; Bob Werner, a deputy assessor; Paul Burrus, a certified public accountant, and Ron Shapazian, an appraiser/broker/businessman.

KERN. With Jim Maples’ retirement, Trice Harvey, a former county supervisor and state legislator, and Jim Fitch are squaring off for the job.

LOS ANGELES. New County Assessor Rick Auerbach has two challengers: Mervin Evans of Los Angeles and John “Lower Taxes” Loew of Woodland Hills, a deputy assessor.

MONTEREY. Assessor Joe Pitta’s retirement brought forth Stephen Vagnini, Eric Bailey and Jeffery Walbech as candidates to succeed him.

ORANGE. Assessor Webster Guillory is being challenged by Larry Bales.

SAN BERNARDINO. Assessor Don Williamson is being challenged by Linda Foster, former chief of staff to Mr. Williamson. Former Assessor R. Gordon Young is also in the race.

SAN DIEGO. Greg Smith, county assessor since 1983, is being challenged by John Hammerstrand, an environmental health specialist.

SAN FRANCISCO. Assessor-Recorder Doris Ward has five opponents in March. She is opposed by Ronald Chun, a tax attorney/CPA; Mabel Teng, a former supervisor; John Farrell, assistant assessor-recorder (a former budget director in the assessor’s office who was reassigned by Ms. Ward after filing papers to run against her, reported the San Francisco Chronicle); Richard Hongisto, a former San Francisco assessor, police chief, supervisor and sheriff, and John Rodriguez, a health care consultant. (Editor’s Note: FBI probes Ward’s hiring of political consultant, see Potpourri, page 19.)

SAN LUIS OBISPO. In one of the most interesting races of all, long-time Assessor Dick Frank is being challenged by former Assembly Member Tom Bordonaro. Mr. Frank barely won re-election four years ago and was criticized for his property inspection program without owner consent. A State Board of Equalization survey of San Luis Obispo County assessment practices, released earlier this year, was highly critical of certain practices. Mr.Bordonaro said, “If there is a gray area in the law, I want to side with taxpayers.”

SOLANO. County Supervisor Skip Thomson and Alfred Wise are contesting the post vacated by retiring Assessor Robert Blechschmidt. Mr. Blechschmidt, leaving after 14 years in the job, has endorsed Mr. Thomson, who worked in the assessor’s office for 16 years prior to his election as a supervisor in 1992. According to the Fairfield Daily Republic, Mr. Blechschmidt said, “I want to do a bit more traveling and enjoy my grandchildren and do some other things besides coming to work every day.”

STANISLAUS. With the retirement of Assessor Mike DeFerrari, the two candidates running to succeed him are Doug Harms and Mike Serpa.