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MARTINEZ -- Deputy District Attorney Robert J. Kochly is headed for a promotion. With nearly 90 percent of the vote counted Tuesday night, the longtime county prosecutor was comfortably ahead of opponent Mike Menesini by almost five percentage points. Updated Nov. 6, 2:30 pm
With 841 of 1,072 precincts reporting, Kochly was leading Menisini 52.2 percent to 47.8 percent. The vote total was 75,192 for Kochly, 68,748 for Menesini.
"The voters of Contra Costa wanted a professional prosecutor instead of a politician, and that's what we'll give them," Kochly said Tuesday night in a telephone interview at his campaign headquarters.
Menesini, a Martinez native and its mayor since 1985, entered the primary race at the last minute in March and made environmental fines a major campaign issue as Election Day loomed.
Menesini blasted the current district attorney.'s $675,000 settlement with Shell for a series of toxic releases last summer. He said the fine was too small and that if elected, he would be tougher on refineries.
Chevron, Texaco, Tesoro and other local petroleum companies united to launch an unofficial campaign on behalf of Kochly.
"It's not support I asked for or solicited," said Kochly. "They won't find a friend in me. I will enforce all environmental laws."
Supervisor Gayle B. Uilkema, whose District 3 includes Tosco and many of the oil refineries in Contra Costa, said the district attorney can only prosecute as far as lawmakers will allow.
"The policies are set by state and not by county," she said. "The settlements have been at the maximum edge of the range."
Both candidates are veterans of the district attorney's office. Kochly has logged 29 years as a Contra Costa prosecutor. Menesini prosecuted cases for 13 years under outgoing D.A. Gary Yancy before jumping ship for the San Francisco district attorney's office in 1995.
"Mike was not in the in crowd," said Jose Umali, friend and supporter of Menesini who as a private defense attorney has faced the candidate as a prosecutor in San Francisco. "Yancy and he did not see eye to eye on how to prosecute cases."
In sharp contrast is Kochly, who had the endorsement of his boss.
"I share most of Gary Yancy's core values," said Kochly in a recent interview. "But I'm a generation removed and more progressive."
Many of Kochly's supporters on the Board of Supervisors hope the district attorney continues on the course Kochly and his superior have so far charted, focusing on domestic violence, elder abuse and truancy.
Menesini portrayed his opponent as a conservative, although on key issues such as the death penalty, the two seem more alike than different.
"It's a question of style and whether you're satisfied," said District 3 Supervisor Uilkema. "Kochly is a big advocate of reducing our number of outstanding arrest warrants, which was up to 72,000."
Both men agree that the Contra Costa district attorney, whose 97 prosecutors file 23,000 cases a year, cannot be afraid of the death penalty. Menesini is only slightly more reluctant to press for capital punishment than Kochly.
In October, Menesini told the San Francisco Recorder that he would have "no hesitancy" about pushing for capital punishment, even though on a separate occasion he said that Contra Costa County tries death penalty cases "like popcorn."
Kochly admitted that his career as a prosecutor has colored his attitude toward the necessity of the death penalty.
"After being exposed to the kinds of violence you get exposed to in this profession," he said with a quiet force, "I don't have any problem saying I support the death penalty."
With two degrees from the Jesuit University of San Francisco, Kochly has not been shy on the campaign trail about his Catholic faith, or where his politics and the church go their separate ways.
"Although the church keeps moving in the other direction, most lay Catholics wind up feeling the way I do," he said, pointing out that San Francisco does not currently try capital cases.
"My sense," countered Menesini in the Recorder on Oct. 21, "is that those cases are not reviewed as closely as they should be."
Just two days after the article appeared, jurors decided that Larry Graham should be executed for the 1983 kidnapping and murder of 5-year-old Angela Bugay. The jury as a group visited the child's grave after delivering its verdict.
Although Kochly did not try that case, he fervently supported the decision to push for the death sentence.
Kochly himself has tried only two death penalty cases since he started working as a Contra Costa prosecutor in 1973. Only one of these resulted in a guilty verdict.
Kochly has made the issue of felony convictions a central campaign theme, although voters in Richmond -- the community responsible for half of Contra Costa's felony cases -- did not seen much of him.
Richmond Mayor Irma Anderson endorsed Menesini.
"It's a waste of my time to go door to door out there," said Kochly, adding that Richmond and El Cerrito combined make up only 20 percent of Contra Costa's 500,000 registered voters.
"El Cerrito and Richmond are not that conservative," said Umali, who lives in El Cerrito. "It's pretty diverse in terms of race, ethnicity and personal views."
Seventy-two percent of the voters cast a ballot for district attorney in the primary, which eliminated Mark Peterson, Mike Gressett, and Matthew Guichard from the race.
Contra Costa County voters have not elected a non-incumbent since 1958. Current District Attorney Yancy and his predecessor William O'Malley were appointed by the County Board of Supervisors and then re-elected as incumbents.