Deukmejian Directs Caltrans to Open District Office in County

Moving to end constant pressure from Orange County’s political and business leaders, Gov. George Deukmejian announced Thursday that Caltrans will open a fully staffed office in Orange County.

Deukmejian said he has told the California Department of Transportation to begin the search for an interim district director and to transfer engineering and traffic management responsibilities for Orange County from the department’s Los Angeles office.

In a statement issued by his press spokesman, Deukmejian said the office, the first Caltrans district office the state has opened since 1933, would “greatly improve communication between local government and the state” and help relieve pressure on the Los Angeles office.

‘Ballpark Figures’

John Sullivan, undersecretary of business, transportation and housing, said he did not know when the office would open or how large its staff would be. He said earlier department estimates that it would take at least $5 million to operate an Orange County district office were “ballpark figures.”

Sullivan said the department had already decided to put about 300 employees in Orange County over the next year. The major impact of Deukmejian’s decision will be to provide local direction and administration for those workers, he said.

Orange County leaders were jubilant in the wake of Deukmejian’s announcement, with some saying the day could mark a positive turning point in the county’s longstanding transportation crisis.

“I’m thrilled,” said Assemblyman Ross Johnson (R-La Habra), author of a bill now working its way through the Legislature that would require Caltrans to establish a full, permanent office in Orange County. Until now the county has been the site of the department’s District 12--an office on paper but actually part of District 7, which also serves Los Angeles and Ventura counties.

‘Director on Site’

“We think it’s terribly important that we have that focus of attention in District 12, with a director on site and a staff on site to advocate within Caltrans for our Orange County projects,” Johnson said.

Sen. John Seymour (R-Anaheim), said he was “tickled pink” by the governor’s decision.

“It’s a great coup,” Seymour said. “We’re getting out from under the yoke of Los Angeles. You’re going to see projects on time and having a very high priority.”

County Supervisor Harriett M. Wieder, who is also chairman of the Orange County Transportation Commission, said, “This is going to help us respond to one of the biggest problems in our county: transportation gridlock.”

Stanley Oftelie, the commission’s executive director, said the office will give Orange County a “champion” for its needs within the immense Caltrans bureaucracy.

“This takes us out of the second string when it comes to projects,” he said.

Oftelie said 10 of the county’s top 20 state transportation projects have slipped behind schedule, and he blamed many of the delays on the Los Angeles district office’s need to juggle manpower among its many projects.

Orange County’s first priority, the reconstruction of Interstate 5, remains on schedule. The California Transportation Commission on Thursday approved $19.8 million for the project’s first phase.

But Oftelie said the second priority, the widening of I-405 from I-605 to I-5 is six months behind, as are many others.

“Our No. 1 priority is the Santa Ana Freeway, and our No. 1 project is the I-5 and I-55 interchange, and that has held tough,” Oftelie said. “But throughout the system we’ve been experiencing slippage. We think this will go a long way toward resolving that.”

Although Deukmejian’s statement stressed the practical reasons for opening the office, such as Orange County’s rapid growth in population and employment, his decision came after months of political cajoling from Orange County’s political and business establishments.

The persuasion took two forms: Johnson’s bill that would have created the office, and Seymour and others working behind the scenes to accomplish the same task administratively.

Johnson’s bill cleared its first hurdle Wednesday afternoon in the Assembly Transportation Committee, where it was approved on a 10-2 vote. Johnson said the Administration’s knowledge that he “had the votes” to win passage of the bill probably contributed to Thursday’s decision.

While Johnson was taking the legislative route, Seymour was also working to persuade the Administration, through his role as chairman of the Senate Republican Caucus. Seymour said he set up two meetings with Orange County business leaders and John Geoghegan, secretary of business, transportation and housing, and arranged another with Steven Merksamer, Deukmejian’s chief of staff.

“We had one working it high and one working it low,” Seymour said. “It was really a unified effort.”

Sullivan said the decision, which Caltrans had been resisting, was expedited after the department opened a satellite office in the county in March to oversee the I-5 project, which will eventually result in doubling the width of the freeway from six to twelve lanes.

“It became evident then that we needed to keep looking at the situation,” Sullivan said. “There were a group of people who were all stressing the kind of service needs they had, and we kept examining it, and it turned out we thought we ought to go ahead with it.”

Sullivan said his office will be working with Johnson to amend provisions into his existing bill to fund the office as part of the 1987-1988 fiscal year, which begins July 1.