Fuentes Picked to Lead GOP in Orange County

Thomas A. Fuentes was elected chairman of the Orange County Republican Party Monday night, succeeding eight-year veteran Lois Lundberg in the party’s top county post.

Fuentes, 36, became the first Latino to lead the party, while newly elected party secretary Alberta Christy on Monday became the first black to join the party’s 12-member executive committee.

The ceremony at the Westin South Coast Plaza Hotel included the swearing-in of the 66 Republican Central Committee members elected last June, plus the election of other party officers: Dennis Catron as first vice chairman, Coanne Cubete as second vice chairman, Leon Jones as treasurer, Dorothy Hughes as assistant treasurer and Chuck Montero as sergeant-at-arms.

Both Catron and Cubete are former state presidents of the California Republican Assembly, a conservative network of party activists and volunteers that makes primary election endorsements.

Fuentes, a Newport Beach resident and senior vice president of a Costa Mesa civil engineering firm, said the party’s goals during his two-year term will be to elect a Republican to the Assembly seat held by Democrat Richard Robinson in the 72nd District and to expand the party’s outreach program to youth and ethnic groups.

Fuentes, a former aide to Supervisors Ronald Caspers and Thomas F. Riley, is also director of communications for the Catholic Diocese of Orange and serves on the board of trustees of a number of charitable organizations in Orange County.

Lundberg was elected party chairman in 1977 at a time when Democrats held the majority of the legislative and congressional seats in the county.

State Sen. John Seymour (R-Anaheim), who nominated Fuentes, said: “No easy legacy has this chairman left. It is going to be difficult to top it, to improve it--but improve it we must.”

The Republicans accumulated a 410,000-vote margin for Ronald Reagan in November.