The Race for the Third Supervisorial District

Michael D. Morgan

When Supervisor Maggie Kildee retired in 1996, Camarillo City Councilman Michael D. Morgan campaigned to replace her--losing to Kildee aide Kathy Long in a runoff.

Four years later, following a couple of high-profile controversies involving the Board of Supervisors, he decided to try again. He said his decision was triggered in large part by reports of the county’s financial and organizational problems.

Morgan, 52, a retired probation and pretrial officer, has served on the City Council for two decades.

Question: Why did you decide to get into this race?

Answer: I turned it down the first few times people tried to get me to run. I had taken [myself] out of the race because they [supervisors] had problems, that $15.3-million problem they were facing, plus there were other expenses that I knew were coming forward--the investigation, the attorney’s fees. Also, earlier in the year, for some unknown reason my heart had turned off. It wasn’t a heart attack; it wasn’t [heart] disease. No one still knows what happened. They think it was due to dehydration. I was skiing. . . . [Doctors put a] pacemaker in, just in case. It doesn’t operate my heart. It’s there as a safety device. So the physical problem is gone. But when I saw the release from [short-term Chief Administrative Officer] David Baker and all the reasons that he did not take the job, I knew there were some problems with teamwork in the county.

A couple of supervisors don’t even talk to each other. Teamwork is what helps this. You need a stronger CEO--a CAO-type of situation. Kingdoms can’t be built behind the scenes. If you do that, you become political entities and they fight with each other. Before I committed, I needed to talk to a lot of people. I’ve been a investigator all my life; that’s just a thing I have to do. I talked to Pierre Durand. I decided: I’ve got to run. Because the way it’s set up now, it’s not going to work.

Q: What are the first couple of steps you would take to straighten out that problem of board interaction?

A: First, I think the board has to sit down and talk about working as a team, rather than going at adverse purposes. Politics is supposed to be going in a line that helps the community. These are representatives of the community who work to benefit the community. The first thing you have to do is get the people working as a team. And to do that you have to know each other and take politics out of it and do what’s best for the county.

So the first step would be to try to develop some teamwork agreements. And one of those could be that we don’t go to other department heads to start working on projects without going to the top, and us all saying OK. For instance, the mental health issue, the housing. There’s the ARC [Assn. for Retarded Citizens] facility on Lewis Road. You’ve got [Supervisor Frank] Schillo working on that. I’m on that committee too; he asked me on behalf of our city to come work with him on it. It’s a very good project. And then you have [Supervisor] John Flynn working in another direction. Maybe there should have been a committee looking at all the different options and bringing those options back to the board as recommendations. The board could decide which way to go from there. But as it is, you have different entities working in different ways, trying to gain that support they need. That’s not teamwork.

Q: What do you bring to the county supervisors’ office that would make you an asset to the county, and why should people vote for you instead of incumbent Kathy Long? What sets you apart?

A: Just as an example: When you have professional advice given to you--let’s say you hire Deloitte & Touche just to examine this [mental health] merger, and you have your own staff and their advice, and everyone is saying, “Don’t do it, because you have . . . problems and it could cost you between $12 million and $20 million,” according to Deloitte & Touche at that time--I don’t know of a city council that would go against that recommendation. You don’t go against those people who are professional, that you hire, especially when you have two or three different entities giving you advice.

I don’t know of any Board of Supervisors member who is a specialist in every field you deal with in the county. You’ve got to respect good advice that comes in. I’ve had 20 years dealing not just with the city of Camarillo but with the county too, on several committees. One of those is the Camarillo Airport, where I sit as chairman. Kathy is on that airport advisory group too. So that is experience I bring with me.

We had a problem in Camarillo in 1986. [We] had some checks bouncing when we thought we had $20 million of reserve. Of course it upset us. We hired Arthur Andersen and Co.--a professional group--to come in and tell us what was in those books.

Q: Is there anything the council could have done differently beforehand?

A: No. The city manager interfaces with staff. The gentleman who was treasurer was doing such a good job years before, but mainly from developers’ fees. That was before I got on board. The developers’ fees were coming in because Camarillo was developing. And they were relying heavily on that. We don’t anymore. . . . Arthur Andersen [let] us know what they found. Our finance department had complained to the city manager about [some practices]. We didn’t know that. We didn’t know any of this was happening. Of course, all three of those were replaced. I hated to replace the finance officer, but he should have reported to us. We took all we could get from [the treasurer] from suing him. The city manager was also asked to leave.

So we rolled up our sleeves and we didn’t make any excuses. We committed ourselves to replace all the funds. We also hired Arthur Andersen . . . first, to tell us what happened, then to say how we could clear it up, and to give us policies to live by. Between Arthur Andersen and ourselves, we put together what I call the best finance and investment policies in the state. We have every city asking for our policies. Even Orange County. We are now in a great financial situation.

Q: Translating your experience with the city you just described to the Board of Supervisors: On the board, you would be dealing with an elected auditor, for example, someone you can’t just fire, and a lot of other elected department heads. How would you proceed?

A: If the board stays together as a team, as a group that stays united, and doesn’t politic around the corner with the different department heads, that problem will not be huge as it is now. . . . I think now that the department heads in this county have seen what can happen and where we are, I think you could inspire more teamwork.

Q: The county has six elected positions in addition to the Board of Supervisors. Should some of those be appointed instead of elected?

A: There are only two positions--department heads--that should remain elected, and that’s the sheriff and district attorney. I think we’re wasting effort having all these elected officials as heads of departments.

Q: What’s the biggest single reason the voters should elect you?

A: I call it experience; not experience in the county but experience dealing with people in systems, and also experience in promoting teamwork. That’s why in Camarillo, if you’ve looked at newspapers over the years, you don’t hear much grumbling. In fact, everyone seems to be very happy because we promote that. Even if we lose a vote, you have to shove it aside and work toward your next issues. If something is completely against your philosophy, of course, you’re going to have to make that known and be strong there, but you can’t try to build another army to defeat it. The next election can do that, if you want to replace people.

If you’re a team, if you don’t work [together], you’re going to lose. Baker pointed [this] out in his [resignation] letter--I think he knew he wasn’t going to get anywhere and who was going to be to blame at the end of a year or two--it was going to be the person supposed to clean it up. I think he was brave to do what he did. That’s what caused me to run, because I saw some very big problems here that need solving.

They’re going to have to roll up their sleeves and not go over budget. We’re not kings; we’re public servants. Streamlining also needs to come from the top. That’s just the way I’ve learned to do things, in a business fashion.