Runoff Foes Accentuate the Differences

As they prepare to face each other in a November runoff, supervisorial candidates Mike Morgan and Kathy Long are hoping to convince voters that there are major differences between them.

The two are competing to replace retiring Supervisor Maggie Kildee, whose 3rd District extends from Fillmore to Camarillo.

At first glance, the candidates appear to have a lot in common.

Both are from Camarillo and both have devoted a good part of their lives to public service, Morgan as a longtime Camarillo City Council member and Long as former president of the city’s Chamber of Commerce and currently top aide to Kildee.

The two are also in accord on some key issues. Both favor farmland protection and oppose the use of the Point Mugu Navy base as a commercial airport.

So it was not surprising that the day after beating two other candidates in last Tuesday’s primary, Morgan and Long were fast at work directing attention to their different backgrounds and political philosophies.

Morgan trumpeted his 16 years on the City Council, while noting that Long has never held elected office.

“Last year, before this [campaign] started, the public wasn’t even aware of the other three candidates,” Morgan said. “I’ve made a name in the community because I’ve been involved.”

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But Long, who has been endorsed by Kildee, said she too has been involved and believes that overall she has more government and business experience to draw from than her opponent.

She points out that she has served as an administrative assistant for the city of Detroit and was an aide to a former Los Angeles councilwoman. Also, she and her husband, Randy, own two small businesses.

Most important, Long said, her job as Kildee’s top aide has made her more familiar with and sensitive to the needs of the sprawling 3rd Supervisorial District, which also includes Santa Paula, Ojai and portions of Thousand Oaks.

“I carry more of a regional understanding of the issues,” said Long, who outdid Morgan in four of the district’s five cities in last week’s election to become the top vote-getter.

But Morgan, who beat Long in Camarillo, said his opponent is giving herself too much credit for her job with Kildee.

“Maggie Kildee is the supervisor, not Kathy Long,” he said. “Kathy Long is an employee.”

As Kildee’s top aide, Long said, she is more than a mere employee. “Every time I do something for Maggie, that puts her name on the line, and if I wasn’t doing a good job, I don’t think she would keep me around.”

As an elected official, Morgan said he has proven his leadership skills to voters. And his experience is not limited to Camarillo. He has served on the executive board of the Southern California Assn. of Governments and on a state commission that deals with trade and tourism with Mexico.

“When you’re in the bullring, the decision-making arena, that’s different than gathering information for someone because you have to face your constituency,” he said. “And she has not done that.”

One other major source of contention between the two candidates is what to do about the possible closure of 60-year-old Camarillo State Hospital, which supports 1,500 jobs and an annual payroll of $80 million.

To protect those jobs, Long--who received financial support from hospital employees in the primary--said she would favor turning it into a medium-security facility for mentally ill criminals if only low-risk patients were admitted.

“This is the economic base of our community, and it always has been,” Long said. “But this is also something we need in our society. It’s not something we can close the door to.”

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Morgan takes a different view.

“This is going to be a major source of contention,” he said. “If they can’t guarantee they’re not going to have any violent sexual predators over there, I can’t support it.”

Morgan is a federal pretrial officer and performs duties similar to a probation officer with defendants before they go to court.

Even if such criminals do not escape, their presence near Camarillo would bring their families and friends to town, he said. “This would become a prison community, and in talking with law enforcement, you’ll find that your crime rate will go up.”

Although both candidates favor farmland preservation, Morgan said he believes he is a stronger advocate of measures to control growth.

He said he was on the steering committee that in 1983 wrote Camarillo’s voter-approved growth-control ordinance, which limited the number of annual building-permit allocations to 400. He was also instrumental in establishing the greenbelt agreement between Camarillo and Oxnard.

“My actions have proven my worth as far as ag preservation,” Morgan said.

For her part, Long said she believes the county can maintain its strong agricultural economy while supporting reasonable growth within its cities’ borders.

“We can have a healthy economy and balanced growth and still protect our farmland,” she said. “And we can do that not by drawing lines in the sand, but by talking to each other.”

But while she favors greenbelts and controlled growth, Long acknowledges that she would not have supported Measure A, Camarillo’s slow-growth ordinance adopted in 1983. She believes strongly that such issues should not be decided at the ballot box.

“I think ballot-box initiatives, when it comes to land use, hamstring elected officials,” she said. “It takes away their ability to exercise discretion. Voters elect leaders to make policy decisions that represent the majority.”

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Indeed, Long said she supported the Board of Supervisors’ decision last year to study the 189-unit Knightsbridge housing project in Somis. Kildee voted against the study.

Long said this doesn’t mean she would vote to allow the development. She simply believes the developer has the right to a fair hearing, which would be true in other cases as well.

“Each case has to be addressed individually,” she said.

Both candidates acknowledge that their campaign strategies will need some fine-tuning before the November election. Each, for example, plans to spend more time knocking on doors in the Santa Clara Valley.

“I’m already gearing up,” Morgan said. “Now the race begins.”

Times staff writer Daryl Kelley contributed to this story.