Beam Attacks Roth for Taking Billboard Firms’ Contributions

Orange Mayor James H. Beam, running for the county Board of Supervisors, attacked fellow candidate Don Roth on Thursday for taking contributions from billboard companies that are trying to get more of their signs on freeways.

Beam also charged Harvey Englander, political consultant to Roth, with “preparing to conduct another of his last-minute smear campaigns” and using a telephone poll of voters “to see which is the best smear to use on me.”

Roth, who is the mayor of Anaheim, in 1984 declared his opposition to billboards on freeways in the city. Last year, he received $5,750 from billboard firms or their employees, according to campaign expense reports. When the issue of freeway billboards returned to the council recently, Roth favored it initially.

The proposal ultimately was shelved because of opposition from residents.

‘Serious Breach of Trust’

Beam said that although the issue is dead “for the moment,” Roth should “bury it so deep it will never rise up again” by declaring his opposition once and for all to freeway billboards and by returning all donations from billboard companies since his 1984 announcement of opposition.

The reversal by Roth “appears to be a serious breach of the public’s trust or at the very least a case of poor judgment,” Beam said at a press conference.

Roth said the attack by Beam was expected because of polls indicating “that Mr. Beam is not doing well and is running a poor third,” behind Roth and former Rep. Jerry M. Patterson in the campaign for the June 3 election. If no candidate gets more than 50% of the vote then, the top two will have a runoff.

“I think really that’s what triggers this news conference, to get some name recognition, and I understand that’s what he is trying to do,” Roth said.

Roth said Thursday that he had been interested in the proposal to allow more billboards along freeways because it included a trade-off: some billboards in the city would be taken down.

Influence Denied

Roth has said the campaign contributions from billboard companies did not influence him. This was not, he said Thursday, the first time that “after I’ve heard all the testimony I’ve changed my mind.”

Roth and Beam are Republicans who publicly had only nice things to say about each other until they joined the race for the 4th District seat held by Ralph B. Clark, who is not seeking reelection. Patterson is a Democrat, but the supervisor post is nonpartisan.

The district covers Anaheim, Orange, Buena Park, La Palma and parts of unincorporated county territory.

Beam’s attack on Englander, a Newport Beach-based political consultant who has run Roth’s past campaigns in Anaheim and is running this one, focused largely on a poll done for Roth.

Beam said three Orange residents independently told him that telephone interviewers had asked if they were more likely or less likely to vote for Beam if they knew he was being sued by a former business partner; that he was a land developer; that he had to abstain from voting a number of times because of business conflicts, and that he was the architect of the diamond lane on the Costa Mesa Freeway.

Suit ‘an Obvious Setup’

Beam said the lawsuit was “an obvious setup” and was filed a few days before the poll by someone who is a Roth adviser and campaign contributor.

He said he was a builder of homes, but never a land developer, and now buys foreclosed condominium projects from banks to operate as apartment projects. In addition, he said he abstained only once in about 15,000 votes as an Orange city councilman and made a full statement about that abstention, which involved expansion of an auto agency whose owner Beam had dealt with in business.

Finally, Beam said, “diamond lanes” was a “pejorative” term with an “obvious implication of guilt by association with the ill-conceived Santa Monica Freeway fiasco.”

Actually, the Costa Mesa Freeway has experimental “car-pool lanes.” Beam is chairman of a local advisory committee on the lanes because much of the freeway runs through Orange, he said.

Englander said Beam’s comments were “desperate acts” by a politician in last place in a political campaign.

“He has begun his campaign in a desperate state in order to get some ink (publicity) to move what is obviously a dead-in-the-water campaign effort,” Englander said.

‘Why Is He So Touchy’?

The campaign consultant denied the term “diamond lane” was used in the poll. He said he saw no difference “between a land developer and a house builder and I don’t think the people do either. And why is he so touchy about it, if there is a problem?”

Englander said the lawsuit was filed by an “extremely successful businessman” who is an adviser to Roth “and who unfortunately found himself in a business deal with Mr. Beam.”

Beam said that “Harvey Englander’s checkered past of smears, last-minute smears, goes back here in Orange County to the Doris Allen race against Chet Wray” in 1982 for the state Assembly.

Beam said that Allen, a Cypress Republican, while on the school board had voted for money for additional school buses and that “Englander said she was in favor of school busing, one of dozens of examples of how Harvey Englander conducts his campaigns.”

Englander, who has worked in political campaigns for 18 years, said he has no recollection of sending out that piece of campaign literature for Wray, who lost. Allen is a Beam supporter in the current campaign.