County supervisor race takes new direction

ONE MINUTE, Gary Agopian is licking his wounds on a Mexican beach after finishing third in a race for the two run-off slots in the Contra Costa supervisor election.

The next, the Antioch man is listening with disbelief as his wife tells him that the second-place finisher, Erik Nunn of Oakley, died in a tragic plane crash. The small plane Nunn was piloting went down on June 28 near Las Vegas and killed him, his wife, Tanya, and another couple.

Agopian now will take Nunn's place on the Nov. 4 ballot opposite incumbent Supervisor Federal Glover of Pittsburg.

It was surreal, Agopian said.

"You mentally switch gears and you start thinking about other options," Agopian said. "And then you are out of the country, sitting on the beach, and your wife is running down the shoreline, frantically waving, and your whole life changes."

Nunn's sudden death completely alters the race.

On the one hand, Agopian is a less formidible challenger than Nunn, who had amassed a large war chest and had strong campaign organization.

Nunn also had won key political support from county labor organizations and within the Seeno and homebuilders' network, where his contracting firm had longstanding professional relationships.

Agopian, an elected trustee on the Antioch school board, entered the race late and had raised a paltry $17,000 as of a few days prior to the June election, a fraction of what Nunn and

Agopian is also a pro-life Republican in a supervisor district where five out of every 10 voters is a Democrat.

Record numbers are expected to vote in the general election, especially Democrats and African Americans drawn to the polls in the historic candidacy of presumed Democratic nominee Barack Obama.

All these factors favor Glover, a pro-choice, African-American Democrat.

But don't count Agopian out.

Two-thirds of the 23,000 people who voted in his supervisor race in June chose someone other than Glover, including 27 percent for Nunn and 21 percent for Agopian.

Granted, it was a five-way race but the results were not encouraging for the incumbent.

Many Nunn supporters could shift their allegiance to Agopian, with the exception of some labor leaders who embraced Nunn only after he switched parties from Republican to Democrat.

It's an open question as to whether that support will include East County political player and Pittsburg Councilman Sal Evola, a Seeno family member and a top Seeno executive.

Evola had endorsed Nunn for supervisor over Glover even after the incumbent supervisor supported Evola in his 2006 Pittsburg council race.

Seeno leaders remain angry over the supervisor's opposition to a 2005 Pittsburg ballot measure that expanded the city's growth boundary and opened the door to development on Seeno-owned property. (Voters approved it.)

It's also to Agopian's advantage that he stayed out of the hit-piece fray waged chiefly by Nunn and independent expenditure groups in both camps in the weeks prior to the June election.

Agopian lacked cash for nasty mailers and no one viewed him as a significant enough threat to warrant targeting him.

But Agopian says he has no tolerance for such shenanigans.

He decried the use of negative campaign tactics that were beginning to backfire on Nunn in the final days leading up to the June election. Agopian says he won't do it and he will denounce supporters that do.

The elephant in Agopian's candidacy is whether voters will hold it against him that he won the run-off seat as a result of a tragic accident rather than a winning the campaign.

Privately, some folks suggest Agopian should gracefully withdraw and endorse Glover for re-election.

Talk like that will backfire, bristled Agopian.

Under the law, Agopian cannot legally remove his name from the ballot and if he wins, he must serve.

"Voters will see that as crass and self-serving," Agopian said. "This is not how I wanted it to happen, but 67 percent of the voters wanted a change and I want to honor that."

UNCOMMON TIMES. Nunn died prior to the deadline after which a name cannot be removed from the ballot — 68 days prior to Election Day — but it's extremely rare for a deceased candidate's name to appear on a ballot.

It last happened in Contra Costa in 1994 when county assessor candidate Dan Hallisey passed away before the election.

Challenger and current county Assessor Gus Kramer beat back his deceased opponent despite a concerted campaign to elect the late Hallisey and trigger an appointment process by the Board of Supervisors.

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