County OKs ’87 Legislative Goals : One Would Invite Nursing Homes to Accept AIDS Patients

The Orange County Board of Supervisors adopted its 1987 legislative goals Friday, unveiling an ambitious list of proposals that address mundane and technical matters of purely local concern, as well as major statewide issues.

One proposal that is almost certain to stir controversy calls for financial incentives to encourage skilled nursing and board-and-care homes to house Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS) patients.

Another measure, unlikely to get much attention outside the halls of county government, would allow the destruction of decades-old books, maps, photographs and other materials by making the state’s public records definition conform to the one used by the federal government.

Have Nowhere Else to Go

County officials say the AIDS measure would foster cooperation with nursing homes that now refuse to accept patients with the disease. County officials say that 14 of the county’s 71 severe AIDS patients do not need to be in hospitals but have to remain hospitalized because they have nowhere else to go.

Health officials estimate that the county will have 600 AIDS patients by 1990.

The county’s list of goals was presented Friday to the county’s Legislative Planning Committee, which includes all five supervisors, but only Supervisor Harriett M. Wieder attended the meeting. The other four board members were represented by staff aides who, voting their bosses’ proxies, unanimously approved 21 proposals that county department heads and hired lobbyists have been ironing out for weeks.

For the most part, the proposals are ideas that probably had little chance to become state law or those that legislators would not carry in Sacramento.

However, Sen. Marian Bergeson (R-Newport Beach) already has agreed to carry two county bills that were killed earlier this year.

One would add six judges to the Orange County Superior Court; the other would tack so-called penalty assessments onto traffic fines to raise money for jail and courthouse construction.

In addition to the fund for courthouse construction, the county is proposing a penalty assessment of 50 cents for every $10 in fines to arm Sheriff Brad Gates’ deputies with high-tech, fingerprint-matching equipment. That proposal would raise $300,000 annually, county officials estimate.

The county also is proposing:

- A state-funded study of governmental immunities to see if those regarding liability for paramedics and emergency-response employees should be expanded. Lobbyist Dennis Carpenter warned county officials that the measure would certainly be opposed by the California Trial Lawyers Assn. County officials say they may ask Gov. George Deukmejian to appoint a commission to study governmental immunities without seeking legislation.

- Allowing the county to swap its share of funds from the registration of off-road vehicles with some other county. State law now requires that the money, earmarked from registration fees, be spent only on facilities for off-road vehicles. But county officials, who have about $400,000 in a special fund, say there are no off-road facilities in Orange County and they want none. The proposal would allow the county, which wants more money for bicycle and nature trails, to negotiate a swap.

- Rewriting the formula for distributing money for alcohol and drug abuse programs. The proposal, similar to a bill that Sen. John Seymour (R-Anaheim) had to drop last year, would increase the county’s $3.9-million allocation for drug abuse by $399,000 and its $2.6-million allocation for alcohol programs by $483,000.

- Allowing probation authorities to set restitution terms for criminal defendants without seeking court orders. The measure would save an estimated $50,000 annually, county officials say.

- Allowing the county to rent space for courtrooms in buildings other than courthouses.