A Do-Something Board at Long Last for County

It’s been a long time since anyone pointed to the San Diego County Board of Supervisors as an example of a thoughtful and progressive legislative body.

For much of the 1970s, the board’s signature was the bellicosity of Supervisors Roger Hedgecock and Jim Bates, who made fighting with the other board members and berating the staff a weekly feature of board meetings.

Despite their shortcomings in the area of civility, however, Bates and Hedgecock did make things happen. When Bates went to Congress in 1983 and Hedgecock to the San Diego mayor’s office a few months later, the board began to drift. Supervisor Paul Eckert assumed somewhat of a leadership role, but that did not extend to aggressive problem-solving on a countywide level.

But things have improved at the county since the election in 1984 of Supervisors Susan Golding, George Bailey and Brian Bilbray. While Golding has been the most prolific of the three in generating ideas, what seems most important is the altered chemistry of the board. For a change, the board members are working well together and doing something.

A sampling of the board’s actions in the last year includes:

- Changing chief administrative officers. After seven years, Clifford Graves is out, and Norman Hickey from Hillsborough County, Fla., is on his way in.

- Reorganizing the Health Department. Several administrators were replaced, and the management structures of Edgemoor Geriatric Hospital and the county mental health hospital in Hillcrest were revamped.

- Approving in concept a $400-million jail and courts construction proposal. Financing methods are being debated by the board now.

- Approving programs addressing the urgent issues of AIDS and the homeless.

- Upgrading the coroner’s office with badly needed professional staff and new equipment.

- Dropping the ill-advised plans for the Harbor Square hotel and office complex on waterfront county property.

Several of these decisions addressed situations that had reached crisis proportions. It is to be hoped that this board and its new chief administrator will be able to identify and deal with future problems before they become so difficult and costly to correct.

There is another side to all this board activity that has yet to be seen--the price in terms of other services that have to be cut back or dropped. The supervisors cannot, for example, add 20% to the mental health budget and 40% to the coroner’s budget without taking that money from some other pot. Some of these bills will come due this year, meaning 1986 might be somewhat less exciting and more frustrating than last year. But the county will be best served by the board’s maintaining the problem-solving outlook its three newest members brought with them.