County Reels From List of Sacramento Setbacks in ’86

In 1985, it seemed that the Orange County Board of Supervisors had a fairy godmother in the state capital. The board found champions in Sacramento for virtually all its legislative goals, and a receptive Legislature repeatedly let California’s third most populous county have its way.

It was a year that the supervisors characterized as one of their most successful ever.

Not so 1986.

As the second half of the two-year session ends, Orange County officials and the county’s colorful 12-member legislative delegation are reeling from a series of setbacks. Several bills of special interest to the county are among the 1,200 still awaiting action by Gov. George Deukmejian. County officials are waiting anxiously to see if the governor will give them long-sought relief from suits on airport noise, allow disgruntled legislators to dictate where they can build their new jail and fund county programs on health care for the working poor.

Among the disappointments of 1986:

- A county-backed proposal to end the long-running controversy over a combined sheriff-coroner office was killed at its first hearing, shortly after legislators reconvened for the year.

- Two county legislators staged a gallant fight but failed in efforts to ensure that Orange County school systems get a fair share of money under a special program for educating poor and bilingual students.

- The Legislature refused to give the county any more judges, while flatly rejecting a county-proposed scheme to build new courtrooms with money raised by increasing traffic fines.

In addition, for the third time in three years, legislation long sought by county supervisors to protect them from “harassment” lawsuits regarding the operation of John Wayne Airport went to Deukmejian. But backers feared that the governor would veto it, as he had two earlier bills on the issue.

Also, awaiting the governor’s signature is a major statewide pork-barrel bill that contains $25.2 million for jail construction projects in Orange County.

Strings Tied to Money

Normally, the measure would be cheerfully welcomed in Orange County, where officials have been held in contempt of court and are under a federal court order to ease jail overcrowding. But two influential legislators from Orange County tied strings to the money--essentially telling county supervisors that they could use state money to build a new men’s jail anywhere except at the site they had chosen in Anaheim. The lawmakers said that site, at Katella Avenue and Douglass Road, is too close to Anaheim Stadium and “the center of joy and happiness,” Disneyland.

The move by Assemblyman Richard Robinson (D-Garden Grove) and state Sen. John Seymour (R-Anaheim) was a frustrating climax to a legislative year that, for Orange County local officials, had been marked by frustrations.

Supervisors said the jail maneuver was “blatantly political” and charged that Robinson was trying to score points with Anaheim residents in his race for Congress against incumbent Rep. Robert K. Dornan (R-Garden Grove).

Supervisors, who see the restriction as an inappropriate intrusion into a local matter, said at first they would seek a veto by Deukmejian. But as the bill was sent to the governor earlier this month, supervisors admitted that it would be awkward to ask the governor to delay jail funding for 51 other counties because of the political squabble over the Anaheim site.

“We won’t even make that kind of request to put him on the spot,” said Supervisor Bruce Nestande, who has close ties to the Republican governor.

Yet Robinson and Seymour, denounced on the jail matter, were praised days later for killing a surprise attempt to eliminate $7.5 million in funding for the UCI Medical Center and three other teaching hospitals connected to the state university system.

Looking for ways to make up budget shortages that created an end-of-session stalemate between the Legislature and Deukmejian, lawmakers disputed UC claims that the hospitals were facing potential deficits. A proposal surfaced to use the money instead for threatened social programs.

Two-Pronged Attack

Lobbyist Karen Coker, who works for the Orange County Board of Supervisors, said the move, made on the last scheduled day of the session, would have succeeded had not Seymour and Robinson led a two-pronged attack on it in both houses of the Legislature.

“They really deserve credit for defeating it,” said Coker.

Even that victory was a mixed blessing for county officials. One of the programs legislators were seeking to restore was health care for so-called “medically indigent adults”--working poor families whose incomes leave them above the qualification level for other medical assistance programs.

Legislators sent Deukmejian a new bill by Robinson this week that would restore $50 million for the program. But the new bill contained no new ideas on where the state would get the money.

Deukmejian, angered that legislators had reneged on an agreement to fund some social programs by transferring money from the state employees pension fund, has threatened to again veto $200 million worth of spending bills, including the program for health care.

In an emphatically worded letter he sent to all legislators this week, Deukmejian wrote that it “strains credibility and common sense” for the Legislature to approve the spending programs, but not the pension fund transfer.

“Under no circumstances will I approve . . . budget-busting overspending,” Deukmejian wrote. “That would put us right back on the downhill course followed before I became governor. . . . I’m not going to allow Californians to be subjected to that nightmare again.”

Tom Uram, county health care services director, said the working poor of Orange County would likely experience “longer waits” at hospitals and clinics, and would have to drive “longer distances” for health care if the county loses the $3.3 million it got under the program this year.

He said the 33 hospitals and 1,000 doctors that provide health care under the program now are already “getting less than 40 cents on the dollar” under their contracts with the county. A veto would mean that rate would be even lower, Uram said, and “I believe many of them would pull out.”

Here are some major actions of the two-year session from an Orange County point of view (the governor has until the end of the month to decide whether he will sign or veto most of the legislation lawmakers sent to his desk in recent weeks):

- Beach Cities. Twice, the Senate Judiciary Committee rejected bills by Sen. Marian Bergeson (R-Newport Beach) to limit lawsuits for injuries at public beaches and other recreational areas. Bergeson said she was trying to restore a legal immunity stripped away in a 1982 appellate court decision because scores of multimillion-dollar lawsuits have been filed against public beaches all along California’s 840-mile coastline since a Claremont teen-ager, paralyzed from a diving accident, won a well-publicized $6-million verdict against the City of Newport Beach. Officials of Southern California beach communities, saying they were being bombarded with lawsuits over injuries that were not their fault, characterized Bergeson’s bill as their top legislative priority this year. But like Bergeson’s earlier attempt, it was killed amid heavy lobbying by California trial lawyers.

- Concert Noise. Legislators rejected two bills sought by the City of Costa Mesa, which wants to police concert noise at the Pacific Amphitheatre. The 18,000-seat facility is on the state-owned Orange County Fairgrounds, and fair operators from around the state argued it would be a dangerous precedent to let a local ordinance determine noise standards.

- Transportation Funding. With a proposed light-rail system and other major transit projects in limbo, the Legislature agreed last year to let Orange County spend an estimated $9 million in annual interest off accumulated sales tax revenue, earmarked for transit, for a variety of road projects. A separate bill approved by the Legislature this year will allow Orange County to adjust the division of sales tax revenues to give more money to the financially troubled Orange County Transportation Commission, a regional planning agency, and less to the Orange County Transit District, which operates the bus system. That bill is awaiting approval by the governor.

- Urban Impact Aid. Two county legislators, Robinson and Assemblywoman Doris Allen (R-Cypress), introduced bills to give the Santa Ana and Garden Grove school systems a fairer share of “urban impact” funds--a special state stipend to school districts that have high concentrations of welfare and transient families, and bilingual and minority students. But the debate over whether the Orange County school districts and 10 others were being shortchanged led the Deukmejian Adminstration to question whether the program was needed at all. Deukmejian vetoed $76 million for the 9-year-old program from the state budget. Legislators have sent him a new bill restoring the funding, but the Robinson bill that would have given money to districts like those in Orange County that have had a recent influx of poor families, died in a Senate committee last month. Allen’s bill was killed last year.

- Radar. The Legislature gave the California Highway Patrol authority to use radar to catch speeders on Ortega Highway, a winding mountain roadway where numerous traffic deaths have occurred.

- Auto Salvage. A successful county-sponsored bill designed to make it possible for automobile shredders to deposit thousands of tons of a dusty by-product called “fluff” into ordinary landfills was signed by the governor last year. But environmental safeguards amended into the measure by Bergeson, its author, have effectively kept an Anaheim shredder from taking advantage of it. The Orange County shredder’s waste pile has grown to 50,000 tons.

- Jails. Beside the controversy surrounding the Anaheim jail site, the Legislature passed two other measures that could affect future jail construction projects in Orange County. Deukmejian on Thursday announced that he has signed into law a bill by Robinson that will allow Orange, Los Angeles and San Diego counties to speed jail construction projects by skipping some time-consuming competitive bidding requirements. Another bill awaiting the governor’s signature would direct the state Board of Corrections to set maximum cost guidelines for new county jails. The latter was inspired by the 265,000-square-foot intake center being built adjacent to the main Orange County Jail in Santa Ana, which state officials say is the most expensive jail construction project, for its capacity, ever undertaken inCalifornia.

- Sheriff-Coroner. Two bills aimed at eliminating the supposed conflict of interest in having the same person hold the titles of sheriff and coroner died in an Assembly committee, with lawmakers characterzing them as products of an Orange County “political feud” between Sheriff-Coroner Brad Gates and Assemblyman Gil Ferguson (R-Newport Beach), who authored both bills. Orange County supervisors, disappointed over the failure of Ferguson’s second bill, said they have successfully quelled the lingering sheriff-coroner controversy for the time being. But they fear it could resurface should Sheriff-Coroner Gates or Dist. Atty. Cecil Hicks ever leave office.

- Toll Roads. Orange County officials led opponents of a measure that would have allowed the county to build the state’s first public turnpikes along corridors where freeways are eventually planned. While they would like authority to build toll roads, county officials say restrictions in a bill by Assemblyman Nolan Frizzelle (R-Fountain Valley) were unacceptable. The bill died in the Senate Transportation Committee after moving closer to passage than any other toll-road bill has before.

- Judges. In a move generally regarded as a Democratic maneuver to deny election-year appointments to Deukmejian, legislation to expand trial courts throughout the state was derailed last month. County officials were hoping to add six more judges to the 54-judge Orange County Superior Court panel. Despite a three-judge expansion last year, officials say the Orange County jurists are overworked.

- Courthouses. Orange County supervisors, who say they have no way to pay for new Juvenile and Superior Court buildings they will need soon, were twice rebuffed when they went to the Legislature for help. Last year, a bill by Robinson would have allowed the county to reduce the amount of fine money it shares with its 26 cities. But city governments fought the proposal and forced Robinson to withdraw it. This year, the county tried to raise money by increasing parking and traffic fines, but Robinson led legislative opposition to the plan. That bill, by Bergeson, was defeated last month.

- Airport. A bill by Robinson that would allow Orange County to sell $280 million in revenue bonds to finance planned expansions of John Wayne Airport is awaiting Deukmejian’s signature.

- Dorms. Cal State Fullerton got money for its first dormitories. The new student housing complex is scheduled to open by September, 1987.

- State Park. A bill by Assemblyman Ross Johnson (R-Fullerton) that would appropriate $900,000 in park bonds money for a 450-acre addition to the Chino Hills state park is awaiting Deukmejian’s signature. Earlier this year, Deukmejian vetoed an identical appropriation in the state budget, saying the state had an option to purchase the property that will still be good next year.

- Tax Split. The years-old tax dispute between the Orange County Board of Supervisors and the tiny Yorba Linda Water District was aired during both years of the session. Last year, a bill that would have forced Orange County to give the water agency $150,000 more in annual property tax revenues passed the Legislature but was vetoed by Deukmejian. A similar bill was introduced this year, but it was withdrawn after the county and the water district negotiated a settlement.

- Flood Control. The county could set up special property tax assessment districts to fund the county’s share of the $1.2 billion-Santa Ana River flood control project under a bill by Seymour that is also awaiting gubernatorial approval.