Clark, Nearing End of 16 Years on Board, Recalls Simpler Times

On the eve of his last scheduled public appearance as an Orange County supervisor, Ralph B. Clark Tuesday took his listeners on a trip down memory lane to the start of his career 16 years ago in a less crowded county with simpler problems.

“In 1970, this county had 1.4 million residents,” Clark said during the annual state-of-the-county address at Tuesday’s Board of Supervisors meeting. “Today we have 2.1 million. In 1970 we had an annual budget of $240 million. Today that budget is $1.5 billion. That’s not growth, that’s an explosion.”

Sixteen years ago, “our jail was over half empty, and most of the courthouse was unoccupied,” he said. “There was virtually no public transportation, and you had to be observant to see a car which was made in Japan.

“Land in Orange County was cheap, and so was credit. We had been through 20 years of sustained growth, and there was no reason to think it would subside. Very few people wanted it to.”

Clark, 69, makes his last public appearance as a supervisor at a board meeting today. On Jan. 5, his successor, Anaheim Mayor Don R. Roth, will be sworn in to represent the supervisorial district that includes Anaheim, Buena Park, La Palma and part of Orange.

Traffic Solutions Urged

A former councilman and mayor of Anaheim, Clark told his fellow supervisors that the county must solve “our ground transportation problem” and urged consideration of a ballot measure to provide transit funds--perhaps a modified version of the proposed county sales tax increase that was defeated two years ago.

While in the past the supervisors and others in the county were strongly in favor of growth, he said, “we all feel the wind shifting. Not everywhere yet, but enough to take heed. . . . What we need is a restraint on the pace of development meshed with a sound program of infrastructure improvement. That’s the way we’re heading, and I applaud it.”

Clark said he sat through more than 1,300 board meetings in his tenure.

Among the accomplishments he mentioned were his work on getting emergency telephone call boxes for freeways, a 911 phone system for emergency aid and the sheriff’s new computerized fingerprint identification system.

He said he was happy to see the county expand its public parks. Today the supervisors are to rename Los Coyotes Regional Park in the Buena Park-Fullerton area for Clark.