The Region - News from Dec. 17, 1986

The Orange County Board of Supervisors established an AIDS planning committee and created a new job to coordinate the county’s public and private efforts to combat the deadly disease and prevent its further spread. The supervisors also agreed to search for money to finance what was identified in a staff report as the county’s most pressing need: nursing homes and other long-term care for AIDS patients well enough to leave the hospital but too ill to live alone. Except for the new job, the supervisors did not pledge any money to the fight against acquired immune deficiency syndrome. But financial assistance to the nonprofit community groups dealing with AIDS should be one of the goals of the advisory committee, said a spokeswoman for a coalition of service organizations. “It would have been nice to see dollars and cents, but we’ve got the committee,” said Pearl Jemison-Smith, head of ACTION (AIDS Coalition to Identify Orange County’s Needs).