Report Gives Recorder’s Office Good Marks

The Orange County recorder’s office, described in an audit as rude toward the public and far behind in its work, has essentially turned itself around, according to a report released Thursday.

The report by the county administrative office said Recorder Lee A. Branch “is in essential compliance” with the recommendations of the management audit of March, 1985.

But Gregory Winterbottom, Branch’s opponent in the Nov. 4 election, criticized the timing of the report and said he did not believe it was positive.

“I just think it’s obvious what’s going on,” he said. “The thing comes out two weeks before the election. Doesn’t that seem a little odd?”

Branch, however, said he did not see “why it (the report) should have any effect on the election.”

The 1985 audit had concluded that Branch was “perceived by staff as distant and minimal,” that office morale was low and that rudeness toward the public appeared to be “linked to a generally negative tone which is promoted by management.”

Urged Office Split

Branch hotly disputed the audit and urged the supervisors to split the office in two, as it had been until 1978, the year Branch was elected.

Six months after the audit, the county supervisors did divide the offices, appointing Branch as county recorder and Gary A. Granville, an aide to Supervisor Ralph B. Clark, as county clerk.

The recorder’s office files and maintains more than half a million documents each year pertaining to real estate in the county and to personal property sold under financing agreements. The documents include deeds, mortgages and liens on property, plus copies of birth, death and marriage certificates.

The new report said the recorder’s office has registered a 17% increase in the average number of documents filed.

“A more cohesive management and supervisory team developed during this period successfully addressed this increase in workload,” said the report, written by analyst Maxine Schmidl of the administrative office.

Branch, who said he was “very pleased” with the latest report, said his office had cleared previously reported backlogs and was up-to-date on filing documents.

Workload Increases

Because of a blizzard of paperwork caused by refinancing and new home sales, the office workload has increased 50% since the start of the year, he said. “We’ve got the people” to handle the increase, “and we’re current,” he said.

Branch finished first among three candidates in the June primary for the recorder’s post, a nonpartisan position, but did not get the necessary 50% to win outright. As a result he faces Winterbottom, the runner-up, on Nov. 4.

Explaining why he did not believe that the report was positive, Winterbottom said: “It takes lumps of areas where it says he’s doing adequately, or where he has improved. In June, of course, more than half the people said they didn’t want him as their recorder any longer.”

Schmidl said the timing of the report, which goes before the Board of Supervisors on Tuesday, was coincidental.

“My intention was to have no effect one way or the other on the election,” she said. “It was to report the facts as I saw them.”