ORANGE COUNTY IN BANKRUPTCY : Sigoloff Would Bring His Own Team of Advisers : Search: Candidate for interim county administrative post has an asking price that raises eyebrows: $500 an hour.

Corporate turnaround specialist Sanford Sigoloff said Friday that if he wins Orange County’s top administrative job, he will assemble a crack team of advisers to help him make peace among the county and its angry investors, generate quick cash and shrink county government.

Sigoloff said that he and his five-member team would be a worthwhile investment to ensure the job is done effectively, but he warned that he could not do it alone.

“I do know that I need a cadre of people who are used to working with me in order to get things done,” Sigoloff, 64, said from Colorado, where he is vacationing. One member of that team would act as his “alternate” when he is busy with negotiations, he said.

Sigoloff--nicknamed “Ming the Merciless”--has been considered front-runner for interim chief executive officer, a six- to nine-month post. He returns to Santa Ana on Tuesday for an interview with supervisors, who say they hope to make a decision soon.

The others contenders are Ed Dundon, former superintendent of the Garden Grove Unified School District, and William J. Popejoy, former chairman and CEO of American Savings and Loan, who will be interviewed Tuesday. Dundon was interviewed Thursday. Richard Stegemeier, former Unocal chairman and CEO, has also been contacted by Supervisor Gaddi H. Vasquez.

Popejoy has said he would do the job for free, out of a sense of civic obligation--a contrast to Sigoloff’s price tag that raised some eyebrows among supervisors.

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In a letter to Supervisor Marian Bergeson, who selected him as a candidate, Sigoloff outlined his $500 hourly rate and his staff rate of $250 to $350 an hour.

Bergeson said she will negotiate price with Sigoloff, but that qualifications are more important. “The No. 1 concern has got to be to get the right person in the job,” she said.

Sigoloff said he is willing to discuss his rates--within reason.

“If it’s the judgment of the Board of Supervisors to hire me with the appropriate support personnel, I am certainly willing to talk to them about my being compensated, taking into account my salary in the past,” he said. ‘Five hundred dollars an hour is my billing rate.”

Supervisors already have set aside $12 million to pay outside attorneys, financial experts and publicists. Sigoloff said hiring a top executive is not the place to start skimping.

“I’m very sensitive to cost, but don’t just look at me,” said Sigoloff, a Santa Monica management consultant whose previous clients have included Wickes Co. and L.J. Hooker Corp. “Look at all the other dollars the county has spent.”

Sigoloff said he would attack the job in three stages, first bringing some “new values” to the financial restructuring that would help smooth tense relations among county attorneys, pool investors and the county’s creditors.

“Somebody has to coordinate it. Somebody has to make the marriage,” he said.

Then would come raising revenue or selling assets in order to generate cash, he said, and the third prong of the job would involve “restructuring county government to live within its budget.”

In time, some of his team could be replaced by qualified county employees or the outside consultants already on the payroll. But Sigoloff said it would be crucial that he had his own experienced team.

“In the beginning you can’t come in there as the lone ranger and hope that things get done,” he said.

On Thursday, Sigoloff lost a competitor: John Wayne Airport manager Jan Mittermeier dropped out. She was the only county employee in the race.

Some in the business community are complaining that the process has been confined to insiders handpicked by supervisors.

“It’s incumbent upon them to . . . recognize that people who step forward sincerely to help them cope deserve to be heard,” said Tom Gavin, president of a Huntington Beach investor relations firm.

Gavin and about 20 other local business people have flooded Sup. Gaddi H. Vasquez’s office with faxes and calls suggesting B.J. Rone--a corporate turnaround specialist and former chief financial officer of Orange County’s Archive Corp--and demanding that the job search be conducted “on a more level playing field.”

Supervisors said an extensive national search will be conducted to fill the permanent post. “It’s basically been based on informal relationships and direct contacts that we have, and not on a formal executive search,” said Supervisor William G. Steiner. “The assumption is that this is an interim CEO that would only be here six to nine months.”

Steiner said the process is being driven by a sense of urgency.

“It has not been an open process because of those realities. It’s been much narrower. You’ve got a vacuum that has to be filled.”