Hart Swipes at Ferguson, Announces She Will Run

Newport Beach Mayor Pro Tem Evelyn Hart took a hard swipe Friday at Assemblyman Gil Ferguson (R-Newport Beach) as she announced that she will challenge him in the June 7 primary.

“We need a legislator in the 70th District, and we don’t have one,” Hart, 57, a Republican, said at a press conference after the Newport Harbor Area Chamber of Commerce breakfast meeting at which she made the brief announcement that she will run.

“As I started checking his voting record and all that,” Hart said, “I got emotionally involved in this to the extent that I have to do this. I’m not doing it for fun. I’m doing it because I have to do it.”

Specifically, Hart accused Ferguson of failing to support important legislation that would have affected traffic in Orange County. She also said she feels that it was “beyond comprehension” that Ferguson would vote against legislation limiting the county’s tort liability for local beaches.

In a letter to Ferguson that she released to the press Friday, Hart also said, “I must question your effectiveness as a legislator in light of the investigations currently being conducted by the FPPC and the FBI.”

The Fair Political Practices Commission and the FBI are investigating the connection between Ferguson and a pro-development political action committee based in Costa Mesa.

Orange County Republican Party chairman Thomas A. Fuentes, who attended the Chamber meeting at the Meridien Hotel, said that he had hoped Hart would not run. The district is heavily Republican; winning the nomination there virtually assures a general election victory.

“Every elected Republican official whom I have spoken with has given her discouragement in this decision because of the damage it may do to Project ‘90,” Fuentes said, referring to the GOP effort to achieve a majority in the Assembly. If Republicans have a majority in 1990, when the census is taken, they will be in a position to control the redistricting that

will follow. “Any challenge to an incumbent member of the delegation from Orange County takes Republican dollars and Republican energies away” from that effort, he said.

Hart, however, said that no elected Republican officials have advised her not to run.

“Quite the contrary,” she said. “I have been encouraged to run. That’s why I’m running.” Asked to name some of them, she said: “I’m not going to tell you who. I can’t . . . . It’s a sensitive issue. Partisan politics are different . . . than local (nonpartisan) politics.”

Ferguson, reached at his district office later Friday, said he was “very disappointed” that Hart had decided to run.

“It will simply waste the financial resources of our party and keep me from my promise to assist other Republican candidates in attempting to defeat Democrats,” Ferguson said. Ferguson, who is 64, is running for a third two-year term.

He defended his vote on the transportation measure, which would have authorized private contracting for highway construction, saying that Democrats had loaded it with unacceptable amendments.

“We have principles that are important to us,” he said of himself and other Republicans who voted against the measure.

As for beach tort liability, Ferguson said he voted for a later measure he found more acceptable.

“I’ve now voted on almost 10,000 bills,” Ferguson said. “Someone doesn’t like two of my votes is what it amounts to.”

Ferguson said, however, that he expects to have no trouble defeating Hart, as he won handily in 1986 (he received 68.39% of the vote) and he also has assurance from GOP legislators that “whatever I need in the way of finances will be forthcoming.”

He has $200,000 on hand now, he said.

Hart said she hopes to raise $100,000 for the campaign.

Position Argued

“I do not have a lot of money,” she said, adding: “I’ll definitely raise whatever I need to run a good campaign and have my message be told.”

Referring to Project ‘90, Hart asserted that the Republican Party would be stronger with her election than it would be by “only dumping money into campaigns. I’m going to show that spirit of cooperation, and we’re going to get some things done for Orange County,” she said.

She said she is fully aware of the political consequences of challenging a fellow Republican.

“If this was a horse race, I’d be the dark horse,” said Hart, who has been a Newport Beach City Council member for 10 years. “I’m also no Cinderella going to the ball, either. I understand the politics and what’s going on, and I’m ready for that challenge.”

Hart aligned herself with state Sen. Marian Bergeson (R-Newport Beach), who carries much of the legislation that affects the county.

“We can no longer expect Marian Bergeson to carry on alone in Sacramento,” Hart said.

So far, however, Bergeson has indicated that she supports Ferguson.

“I’m not sure what all political games have to be played in Sacramento,” Hart said when asked about this. “I know before this campaign is over that I’ll have Marian Bergeson probably on my side.”

Bergeson could not be reached for comment.