REGULARS

The election in the fifth district, San Francisco and Marin counties, was uncontested, so no ballots were sent.

Unlike previous years, the bar did not send a return envelope or information about the candidates with the ballots.

The new board members are:

District 2, Alpine, Amador, Calaveras, El Dorado, Napa, Sacramento, Solano, Sonoma, Tuolumne and Yolo counties: Sacramento County Bar Association President James R. "Jay" Greiner defeated two other Sacramento attorneys, Brenton A. Bleier and Timothy Taylor.

Greiner is a strong supporter of the State Bar who ran on a platform of improved communication with members and re-establishing the bar's credibility.

Greiner, 43, is a criminal defense attorney who has his own practice. He succeeds Sacramento City Attorney Samuel Jackson.

District 3, Alameda, Contra Costa, San Mateo and Santa Clara counties: David L. Roth, a 45-year-old Oakland sole practitioner, defeated Burlingame attorney Gerald R. McKay.

Roth is a member of the Confer-ence of Delegates and favors its inclusion in a mandatory bar association. He's a firm backer of a strong statewide bar.

Roth succeeds Ann Ravel of San Jose.

District 4, San Francisco and Marin counties: San Francisco public defender and long-time bar activist Ronald Albers ran unopposed and assumed the seat of new bar president Raymond Marshall.

Albers said the bar's predicament offers an opportunity to reconstruct a more efficient and effective organization. He believes that the bar's most critical functions are admissions, discipline and the selection of judges.

District 7, Office 1, Los Angeles: Karen S. Nobumoto, who had the endorsement of the Los Angeles Breakfast Club, was elected to fill the seat of Leon Goldin.

A Los Angeles deputy district attorney, Nobumoto, 46, is a longtime bar activist who stressed fiscal accountability, an effective discipline system and universal access to the courts in her campaign.

She defeated Thomas L. Flat-tery, a semi-retired corporate general counsel, and Robert E. Kelly Jr., a trial lawyer who favors massive bar reforms.

District 7, Office 2, Los Angeles: James D. Otto defeated three-time candidate Robert K. Steinberg.

Otto is the managing partner of Cummins & White in Los Angeles, had the Breakfast Club endorsement, and ran on a campaign of getting the bar back to basics.

He favors a more cost-effective and less bureaucratic bar, which he believes should try to address the needs of the average California attorney.

Otto assumes the seat of Jeffrey Tidus.

Election sponsors

Several individuals and law firms made contributions to defray the cost of the election.

Cable & Wireless Inc., a long distance provider and corporate sponsor of the Foundation of the State Bar, donated $27,500, the bulk of the funds for the election.

Other contributors were former board member Samuel Jackson; former State Bar presidents Harvey Saferstein of Los Angeles and Thomas Stolpman of Long Beach; law firms Daar & Newman of Los Angeles; Jackson Tufts Cole & Black of San Francisco; Pivo & Halbreich of Irvine; and Wilson Elser Moskowitz Edelman & Dicker of Los Angeles.

Newest member resigns

In another development, the newest public board member resigned after attending part of one meeting.

Pleasanton police chief William Eastman, appointed by Gov. Wilson the night before, attended the board meeting at which the new bar president was elected. He left by lunch and has since cited health reasons.

The terms of three other public members also have expired: businesswoman Wendy Borcherdt of Los Angeles, Westwood management consultant Gregory Segall and psychologist Dorothy Tucker of Los Angeles.

Borcherdt, a strong bar critic, was appointed by Wilson.

Segall was appointed by then-Speaker of the Assembly Curt Pringle, R-Garden Grove.

Tucker, who has been on the board for eight years, was named three times by different Democratic legislators.