Grand Jury Rakes Supervisors, Urges Stronger County Manager

In a report that sharply criticized the Board of Supervisors, the Orange County Grand Jury called Thursday for an overhaul of county government and creation of a stronger county manager to carry out the policies and plans of the board.

The report, which accused the five-member board of poor management and a lack of planning, said the supervisors are no longer able to set policies and manage daily governmental operations because of the county’s tremendous growth in recent years. It said the board should concentrate on setting policies and see that others carry them out.

The grand jury also recommended establishing an 11-member citizens committee to provide advice on plans and decisions.

Board of Supervisors Chairman Roger R. Stanton called the report “simplistic” and referred to a Claremont College study on which it relied as “an ivory-tower piece of nonsense.”

In the past, grand juries have criticized county government on issues such as health care in the jail and supervisors’ rude treatment of the public, but Thursday’s report took a broader, tougher view of the overall management style of the supervisors.

It said failure to implement planning has led to present-day problems “such as inadequate jail space, freeway congestion, inadequate airport facilities and overcrowded courts.”

The future presents the specter of “less visible, but no less important problems, such as homelessness, undocumented aliens, future impact of AIDS on health care services, solid waste management, affordable housing, the impact of federal immigration laws and inadequate computer technology,” the report said.

The grand jurors, whose yearlong term ends June 30, said that “management inefficiencies . . . hinder effective planning and decision-making.”

The 11-page report, plus 58 pages of appendices, adopted, endorsed and included as its core a study of Orange County government by four Claremont College professors.

That study, issued in April, drew withering criticism from Supervisors Thomas F. Riley, Harriett M. Wieder and Stanton, who have been on the board since 1974, 1979 and 1981, respectively. Supervisors Don R. Roth, who took office in January, and Gaddi H. Vasquez, appointed in April, were less critical.

The Claremont study found “symptoms of a fundamental organizational weakness” in Orange County government, “the inability to take decisive action now to deal with persistent and inevitable challenges that the county will face in the near future (three to five years).”

Supervisors retorted that they were planning to solve problems but that implementation often was delayed by lawsuits, environmental studies required by law or lack of money.

The grand jury made three specific recommendations to improve operations in the county:

- Expanding the “limited influence” of the county administrative officer by recasting the job as a county executive officer’s position, with the heads of the county’s agencies and departments reporting through the executive to the supervisors. The position would be similar to a city manager’s job. The heads of county agencies and departments now report directly to the supervisors.

- Appointing an 11-member citizens advisory commission to help supervisors with planning and decisions.

- Implementing conclusions of the Claremont College study, including the hiring of a management consultant to recommend ways to “modernize” the county’s operation.

Grand juror Ralph H. Bauer said at a press conference Thursday that the supervisors’ actions in setting policies and directing how agency heads carry them out were “fine for an agricultural community,” but not for the urban conglomeration that now constitutes Orange County.

Bauer said grand jurors “never received a readable, understandable, long-term plan” from any county department. “They don’t exist.” He said departments should draw up plans and match budgets to them.

Bauer said the explosive growth in the county in the last two decades had overwhelmed county leaders, . and that possibly “no matter who you elected, (he or she) could not have foreseen this, could not have done a good job.”

Darlene A. Derus, who headed the grand jury’s long-term planning committee, which produced the report, said the problems of jails, freeways, airports and other operations were not unique to Orange County.

Rapid growth meant that “cities and the county just have not been able to keep up with demands for services,” she said. Although county officials were warned of potential jail problems and increasing demands for services as more and more people moved to the county, “they maybe did not believe the projected numbers 10 or 20 years ago,” she said.

Conditions Not Unique

“The problem is not simplistically one of management,” said Stanton, who holds a doctoral degree in management and taught the subject for 15 years as a college professor before becoming a supervisor.

The grand jurors “are pointing to conditions in this county that exist in other counties and states in the nation,” Stanton said. The grand jury is “saying leaders in all areas of local government are ignoring the problems. I don’t think that’s the case.”

Cities, counties and states across the country are “facing crises that are the result of societal and national fiscal problems,” Stanton added.

“What (the grand jurors) should do is say Orange County is handling these problems as well or not as well as others,” he said. “And if we’re not handling it as well as others, then I think we ought to acknowledge that.”

He said that while the grand jurors pointed to San Diego County as having a chief-executive-officer type of government, “I’ve been told (that county) has been going through (chief executive officers) down there like waste paper. So (the grand jurors) do not make very good comparisons when they do and they do not make comparisons where they should.”

(San Diego County actually has had only two permanent chief administrative officers in the last nine years. Cliff Graves held the post from 1978 until late 1985. The county’s second-in-command became acting chief administrative officer for several months until the current top officer, Norman Hickey, came on board last year.)

Stanton disagreed strongly with the suggestion that the county administrative office should model its operations after a corporate-style manager’s.

“In a business you can pick what business you’re in,” and if products don’t sell you can drop them, he said. “In government, you do not have that option. For example, if we don’t want to be in the jail business anymore because it is not profitable, we cannot drop it.”

Earlier Committee

Stanton also said that several years ago the county had a committee similar to the one the grand jurors called for, and members of that committee “ultimately recommended that they be dissolved.”

He said committee members felt the county had enough advisory commissions in specific areas such as parks and recreation, airports and health care.

However, Supervisor Wieder said she would “have no problems” with a chief executive officer who would have “the authority to hire and fire” non-elected agency and department heads.

“I’m not afraid of giving him that responsibility and authority because if I don’t like (his performance), I’ll work to get rid of him,” she said.

“I think one of our problems is department heads have five bosses (the supervisors),” Wieder added. “I wouldn’t want to work under those circumstances. I would think I’d be doing a mediocre job if I did.”

‘Radical Change’

Roth said the establishment of a chief executive would be “a radical change” in county government, and “I’m not at liberty at this time to make a judgment call on it.”

Vasquez said he supported having a strong county administrative officer and wondered if the county grand jury’s recommendation was mostly “a difference in terminology.”

He said more study would be needed but noted, as Stanton did, that there are major differences between for-profit corporations and government that make it impossible to simply duplicate all business practices in government.

The supervisors are required by law to respond formally to the grand jury report within 90 days.