Stanton vs. Popejoy: It Wasn’t the Fight of the Century

“Quite a show, isn’t it?” said the man seated next to me at the Board of Supervisors meeting.

Given that the meeting hadn’t even started yet--that we were merely watching the players file into the chamber--it would be fair to characterize his remark as “dry.” And yet, he was right--there was a certain pageantry in the air, as lawyers and accountants and county agency employees and schoolchildren on field trips and average citizens quickly filled up the chamber.

I must be honest. My motives were less than pure. I had come to this supervisors’ meeting, the last before next week’s Measure R vote, hoping for a fight. There was every reason for optimism: This was the first meeting since County CEO William Popejoy had characterized one of his bosses--Supervisor Roger Stanton--as a political opportunist who ought to quit. I read that over the weekend and tried to imagine myself coming into work one day and telling my editor that he was a fraud and that he should quit. Frankly, it was hard to imagine.

But that’s how legends are made, and Popejoy will be one by the time he leaves county government. In just a few months on the job, he’s kicked two of his bosses right in the pants--Stanton and Supervisor Jim Silva--but Silva doesn’t count because he’s new on the job.

Stanton, on the other hand, usually is the one dishing out the punishment. He’s got a tart little tongue on him, and many is the citizen-at-the-mike or county employee who’s had his lunch handed to him by Mr. Stanton.

“His reputation is that if he’s got his mind made up, he can get very, very insulting,” said one longtime county observer. “I’ve seen him take a position, and he gets downright nasty with people who disagree with him.”

But there’s a new ram on the block, and his name is Popejoy. He had this to say about Stanton last week, after the supervisor joined Silva in opposing the proposed sales-tax increase and offering his own plan: “Sadly, this proposal from Roger Stanton is simply hollow political rhetoric by someone who failed to do his job before, and now is continuing to do so by submitting a smoke-and-mirrors proposal of no substance.”

Ouch, babe. Nobody talks to Stanton like that.

When the quote was read to Stanton, everyone put their fingers in their ears and waited for his response. One senior county official once said of Stanton: “He can be unrelenting. And for the faint of heart, he can be very hurtful. You have to have a thick skin.”

You had to figure Stanton has this sales-tax thing figured out. You had to figure he’d belt Popejoy. And yet. . . .

Nothing. No explosion. Not even a little poof. Stanton confined his remarks at Tuesday’s board meeting to a defense of his counterproposal that Popejoy had publicly belittled. And when Stanton went on to say he didn’t want to fight with Popejoy in the media, everyone assumed the supervisor was just having a bad day.

At least, I did. Surely with a weekend’s rest and being back on his home turf in the board meeting room, ol’ Rog would let ‘er rip.

So, I got up early Tuesday, secured a good seat and waited for the main event. I could almost hear the late Howard Cosell, microphone in hand, setting the scene, as he once did in a self-parody for a Woody Allen movie: “This is tremendous, just tremendous. The atmosphere heavy, uncertain, overtones of ugliness. A reminder in a way of how it was in March of 1964 at Miami Beach when Clay met Liston for the first time and nobody was certain how it would turn out.”

Stanton entered first. I noted that the challenger usually enters first, but maybe Stanton didn’t know that. I marked the time as 9:29 a.m. He wore a dark jacket with white shirt and striped tie. He shook several hands as he entered.

Popejoy bounced in at 9:31. Disdaining a jacket, he was sporting a blue dress shirt and patterned tie. He was tanned, as though he may have gone sailing over the weekend. “Looks loose and ready,” I scribbled in my note pad.

Board Chairman Gaddi Vasquez called the meeting to order at 9:33 and handled the preliminary events. We all said the Pledge of Allegiance, heard a prayer, clapped for some citations, listened to a citizen drone on about the agenda.

The positioning of chairs is such that Stanton and Popejoy were virtually nose-to-nose. The tension was palpable.

It is with much sadness that I must now report that nothing happened. Although they looked at each other from time to time, neither said so much as a foul word. I thought at one point Popejoy was egging Stanton on, but the supervisor didn’t take the bait.

By the time Popejoy had to leave 90 minutes later to catch a plane to Sacramento, neither he nor Stanton had brought up their feud.

Disappointed, I left, muttering to myself that I’d gone to a prizefight and a board meeting had broken out.

Dana Parsons’ column appears Wednesday, Friday and Sunday. Readers may reach Parsons by writing to him at The Times Orange County Edition, 1375 Sunflower Ave., Costa Mesa, CA 92626, or calling (714) 966-7821.