Supervisors Deplore Proposed Voting Overhaul

Three members of the Board of Supervisors said Friday that grand jury recommendations calling for countywide election of supervisors and a two-term limit on their tenure are misguided.

They said that countywide elections would be too expensive and that it should be up to the voters to decide how long a supervisor serves.

Supervisor Gaddi H. Vasquez called current election costs “enormous,” even though each of the five members of the board has to campaign only in a single district.

He said that the cost of campaigning throughout a county of 2.2 million would be “staggering” and that he thought “voters should have the chance to determine if there should be a limited term,” as well as having the option of turning supervisors out at each election.

Roger R. Stanton, chairman of the Board of Supervisors, noted that the county has a law limiting campaign contributions to supervisorial candidates. With these limits, he said, “How could you run any kind of a campaign?”

Stanton added that holding countywide elections “does not make sense” for good government because “running at large, you could totally ignore certain communities.”

If a board were elected at large, candidates concentrating on getting funds and votes from the better-heeled residents of the county could ignore “so-called minority communities,” residents of poverty-plagued areas and smaller cities with fewer voters, he said.

“I think that is the most undemocratic solution you could envision,” Stanton said, adding that countywide elections would play only “to the power bases.”

Supervisor Thomas F. Riley also mentioned the costs of running countywide in criticizing the grand-jury recommendations. He said district elections keep candidates more closely in touch with their constituents.

“All the parts of our county are somewhat different in our needs and their environments,” Riley said. “To try to get and know and respond to those (constituencies), a countywide supervisor would not be as effective or responsive as the current method of districts.”

The grand jury, in a review of the overall functioning of Orange County government, said countywide supervisorial elections could help stop a “trend towards unmanageable crises and destructive confrontations” that occur under the present system.

“The Board of Supervisors tends to take a narrow view of problems which may affect the county as a whole,” the grand jurors said.