In 1997, a young and relatively unknown lawman brashly challenged the reelection of Orange County's popular incumbent sheriff, declaring that it was time for a change.
As it turned out, longtime Sheriff Brad Gates bowed out of the 1998 race and retired, and Michael S. Carona, the upstart county marshal whose primary job was ensuring public safety inside courthouses, was elected sheriff over the Santa Ana police chief.
It's Carona in the political crosshairs now, seeking a third term as sheriff and finding himself challenged by a young and relatively unknown underling.
Lt. William J. Hunt, who supervises the 56 Sheriff's Department employees assigned to San Clemente, is the first opponent to announce he'll run for sheriff in June 2006, setting the stage for Carona's first reelection challenge.
Hunt, 42 and a Republican like his 49-year-old boss, said he wanted to restore respectable leadership to a department scandalized in the last two years by Carona's affiliation with former Assistant Sheriffs George Jaramillo and Don Haidl. The sheriff rewarded his two campaign confidants with jobs, and they later left the department under adverse circumstances.
Last year Carona fired Jaramillo, who subsequently was arrested on charges of public corruption and has sued the county to get his job back. Haidl resigned after his son was arrested, and later convicted, in a high-profile sexual assault case.
The fallout tarnished Carona's image as a savvy manager and popped trial balloons suggesting he'd run next year for lieutenant governor with the blessing of his friend Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger.
The two worked together in 2002 on Proposition 49, which established after-school programs that so far have fallen victim to state budget cuts. Schwarzenegger has been coy about whether he will run for reelection himself, and political advisors said he probably wouldn't endorse someone for lieutenant governor in the primary. But Carona took himself out of the mix even before it got to that point, they said.
"I think it's plain for anyone to see that the problems created by Jaramillo and Haidl make him unviable for statewide or national office," Hunt, a 20-year veteran who serves as San Clemente's director of police services, said in an interview.
