Spitzer Shakes Up County With Aggressive Approach

He wasn’t two months into the job when it became clear that Supervisor Todd Spitzer had skipped a class or two in political charm school.

Spitzer erupted at County Chief Executive Officer Jan Mittermeier during a February board meeting, accusing her of deliberately lying to keep supervisors in the dark about shoddy work performed for a county housing program.

One month later, he was at it again, this time castigating his former boss, Dist. Atty. Michael R. Capizzi, for failing to use money from a reserve fund to boost the office’s lagging child-support collections.

Elected a year ago in a surprise win over retiring Assemblyman Mickey Conroy (R-Orange), Spitzer has shaken, not stirred, county government in the last 10 months with a Type A personality that can make him as grating as he is thorough.

He has clashed brazenly with three of the county’s most powerful officials: Mittermeier, Capizzi and Sheriff Brad Gates. A former county prosecutor, his machine-gun questioning style caused Board of Supervisors Chairman William G. Steiner to chide during one grueling board session, “Mr. Spitzer, this is not the O.J. trial.”

Spitzer makes no apologies for aggressiveness, saying voters chose him over Conroy by nearly 30,000 votes, so he would ask questions and get answers, not collapse into the studied politeness that has marked past boards--like the one in power when the county declared bankruptcy in 1994.

He frets only briefly that colleagues consider him anywhere from an occasional annoyance to an arrogant know-it-all. His style contrasts even more sharply with newcomer Supervisor Charles V. Smith, 64, a comparatively stoic former Westminster mayor who says his style is “a little more methodical.”

“I know that people get very frustrated with me. I don’t go away,” Spitzer said. “It used to be everything was decided 5 [votes] to 0. Things have changed. We have an obligation to debate public policy in public, as uncomfortable as it makes certain people.”

At 36, Spitzer is the board’s youngest member and certainly its most vocal. With his gelled hair and rigid jawline, he stands out from his colleagues during meetings, mainlining coffee refills into a Diedrich cup. Though he lives in Brea, he is an unabashed champion of South County causes, representing the 3rd District, which stretches from Fullerton and Yorba Linda to Lake Forest and Mission Viejo.

It was Steiner who coined a motto for Spitzer: “Ready, fire, aim.”

But Spitzer insists that things have changed in recent months. He said he is more savvy about his public confrontations and realizes that scorched earth might not be the only answer to every infestation.

“I’ve toned down my style,” he said last week in his spacious office, where an Astro Turf putting green stretches along one wall. “I understand that my prosecutorial bearing was offensive to some people.

“One of the reasons people may at times have difficulty is maybe I convey that I think someone’s incompetent because I’m asking questions. But it’s not an attack. I’m trying to establish my comfort level.”

Steiner conceded that Spitzer is growing in the job, calming down a bit and checking with colleagues before launching a new initiative.

“Sometimes he plays to the audience and sometimes he’s right on the mark on an issue and he shines,” Steiner said. “He can be very spontaneous. But other times, he’s very deliberate on how he approaches an issue. That’s what makes him so interesting.”

Allies and enemies alike use the same three words to describe Spitzer: bright, articulate, energetic.

He has seen county government from the other side--as a deputy district attorney from 1990 to 1996. An advocate of public service, he has been a Los Angeles Police Department reserve officer since 1990 and taught English for a year, from 1984 to 1985, at Roosevelt High School in East Los Angeles.

After clashing with Capizzi, Spitzer said, he went from top prosecutor in 1992 to being “exiled” three years later to welfare fraud cases. The demotion came, he said, after he alerted his supervisor and the public defender’s office to a potential problem in the prosecution of drug cases against jail inmates. Though no problem eventually was found, when the issue became public, he said, Capizzi tried to make him the scapegoat. Capizzi was unavailable for comment.

Spitzer sees the episode as a classic confrontation between standing up for what is right, even though it is unpopular, and caving in to protect a public image.

Critics say that “I’m-right-you’re-wrong” attitude came across as a chip on his square shoulders when he became one of the five policymakers to lead county government. Spitzer concedes that he was “testing” county staff in the beginning.

He also buried the hatchet with Mittermeier, at least enough so they both “understand what we’re trying to bring to the table.” She was not available for comment.

Last month, Spitzer was hosted at a fund-raiser by Irvine Co. Executive Vice President Gary Hunt, a $150-per-person affair that demonstrated his acceptance by the establishment he ran against. Among those attending was former Orange County Administrative Officer Ernie Schneider, now an executive at Hunsaker & Associates, an engineering and planning firm in Irvine.

“In all of my dealings with him, he’s been very straight up and honest with me. He’s told when he could support me before the board and when he couldn’t,” said Schneider, who helped in Spitzer’s race.

Former Supervisor Bruce Nestande, who represented the 3rd District from 1980 to 1986, said Spitzer brings a fresh enthusiasm to the board, but that does not mean he is right on the issues. He said Spitzer has not yet realized that his opposition to a commercial airport at El Toro Marine Corps Air Station and expansion of the James A. Musick Branch Jail near Lake Forest means he has an obligation to come up with a “realistic, doable” alternative.

“The test of Todd Spitzer’s leadership will be measured by his ability to provide feasibility to those two projects,” said Nestande, a consultant promoting an El Toro airport.

Likewise, Spitzer’s recent vote in favor of studying a light-rail system for Orange County drew a worried response from Bill Ward, an activist with the Committees of Correspondence, a government watchdog group. Ward said Spitzer “appeared to have rolled over” on his position that light rail is too expensive.

“I had high hopes for him, but now I’m not too sure,” Ward said. “He’s dealing with the dark side of the force. I remember kidding him one time where I said, ‘You’re talking good now, but wait until Gary Hunt tells you you’d make a good governor, but you can’t afford to be so inflexible.’ He laughed and I said, ‘I’ll give you a year.’ ”

Spitzer bristled at the suggestion that he had caved on an issue. He said he remains skeptical about light rail but approved studying the issue because “I felt compelled to complete the homework assignment.”

“Being a credible decision-maker means doing everything I can to get all the information I can before I make a decision,” he said. “So far, I’ve only seen evidence showing that light rail is prohibitively expensive, and that continues to make me skeptical about it.”

Spitzer’s wife, Jamie, who still serves as his campaign treasurer, said her husband’s worst quality is that “sometimes he’s just too driven to get everything right.”

The couple were married in April 1996, at the height of the supervisorial campaign. At one point, Spitzer was investigated briefly for possible money laundering after Conroy complained that the $100,000 he spent could not have come from a deputy prosecutor’s salary.

“When Todd sets his mind to do something, whether it’s an issue on the board or outside of that, he does it full force,” said Jamie Spitzer, also an attorney. “When he’s criticized, you have to consider the source of the criticism. Of course, he’s not going to make everyone happy. The good thing is that I don’t hear a lot of it coming from the constituents he represents. They tell us they like what he’s doing.”

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Shaking Up County Government

Supervisor Todd Spitzer has been in office for 10 months and already has engaged and infuriated his colleagues and county officials. Some actions that have landed Spitzer acclaim and acrimony:

Jan. 6: Uses swearing-in ceremony to deliver lengthy policy address chastising county for its decision to begin planning commercial airport at El Toro Marine Corps Air Station.

Feb. 26: Urges colleagues to discipline County Chief Executive Officer Jan Mittermeier and slash her powers after clash over housing rehabilitation scandal.

March 18: Supports hiring more workers for district attorney’s child-support division but recommends Dist. Atty. Michael R. Capizzi hire private companies to improve poor collections rate. Spitzer, a former deputy district attorney, says his former boss sounds “like a defendant” by “blaming everyone but himself.”

April 15: Criticized by other supervisors for sending a letter to U.S. Atty. Gen. Janet Reno requesting an investigation into how federal funds were used in county housing rehabilitation program under investigation for shoddy workmanship and unsafe conditions.

May 20: Refuses to sign a “confidentiality oath” with five other members of the Transportation Corridor Agencies pledging not to publicly discuss details of bond refinancing proposal. He and Irvine Mayor Christina L. Shea halt a closed-door meeting on the subject.

July 1: Secures board backing for resolution with Supervisor Jim Silva to support end of automatic U.S. citizenship for children of illegal immigrants. Critics call resolution racist.

July 7: Demands immediate action on “horrendous” allegations contained in Juvenile Justice Commission report on Orangewood Children’s Home. Is dissatisfied after Mittermeier promises agency officials will “keep me updated” on fixing problems.

July 11: Proposes with Supervisor Thomas W. Wilson that supervisor meetings be televised for first time on cable channels. Though Supervisor Charles V. Smith agrees, Spitzer has yet to secure a third vote.

Aug. 6: Blasts Health Care Agency for failing to fully respond to “multiple breakdowns in the system” at Orangewood after Juvenile Justice Commission accuses county psychiatrists of placing children at risk with questionable drug use and failure to keep accurate records.

Oct. 7: Joins Wilson in persuading board Chairman William G. Steiner to support allowing South County cities to plan possible alternative use to commercial airport at El Toro. It’s a major victory for El Toro airport opponents.

Profile: Supervisor Todd Spitzer

Born: Nov. 26, 1960

Hometown: Whittier

Residence: Brea

Family: Wife, Jamie

Elected: 1996

Education: Bachelor’s degree, 1982, UCLA; master’s degree in public policy, 1989, University of California at Berkeley; law degree, 1989, Hastings College of Law

Background: California state senate fellow, 1982; English teacher, Roosevelt High School, Los Angeles, 1984-85; Los Angeles Police Department reserve officer, 1990-present; deputy district attorney, 1990-96; Brea Olinda School Board trustee, 1992-96

Constituent connection: “I can say unequivocally that the people I represent in my district trust that I’m going to do what I say.”

Sources: Todd Spitzer, Times reports; Researched by JEAN O. PASCO / For The Times