Spate of Orange County Measures Pass Assembly as Embargo Lifted

A bill that would increase fines in order to raise $5 million for new court construction in Orange County was approved by the Assembly on Tuesday after Democrats lifted a two-week-old embargo and passed key Orange County measures.

The embargo was lifted after Assembly Republicans began planning a news conference to accuse Assembly Speaker Willie Brown (D-San Francisco) of stalling to gain support in the business community for his own political agenda, and only an hour before GOP members were going to try to force floor votes on county measures over Brown’s objections.

The courthouse construction measure, authored by state Sen. Marian Bergeson (R-Newport Beach) was one of several Orange County-sponsored bills approved by the Assembly and sent to the Senate for concurrence in minor amendments, including:

- SB 1413, by state Sen. John Seymour (R-Anaheim), which authorizes the Orange County Transportation Corridor Agencies to operate toll roads.

Speeds Highway Construction

- SB 1411, by Bergeson, which allows the Orange County Transportation Commission and other local government agencies to advance their own funds to speed construction of new highway projects, in anticipation of reimbursement with federal highway dollars.

- SB 1147, by Bergeson, which permits Orange County to combine the county flood control and harbors, beaches and park districts into one service agency and include its budget in the county’s Gann spending-limit calculations. This would reduce the county’s risk of reaching its Gann limit because the service districts are well below their limits. (The Gann spending limit, approved by voters in 1979, restricts growth in government spending to 1978 levels, adjusted for population increases and cost-of-living increases.)

- SB 1073, by Bergeson, which restricts the ability of agencies and cities to pull out of the Orange County Transportation Corridor Agencies, set up to collect developer fees for construction of three new south county freeways. If Mission Viejo incorporates, for example, future city councils would have to abide by the Board of Supervisors’ previous commitment to participate in the highway funding program.

Administrative Costs

- SB 1074, by Bergeson, which allows the two county transportation corridor agencies to incur $300,000 each in administrative costs for running the highway funding program.

- SB 1358, by state Sen. Ed Royce (R-Anaheim), which sets up a special board to review the academic credentials of physicians in exile, including Vietnamese refugees who have had difficulty in obtaining state medical licenses because they fled after the fall of Saigon without copies of their diplomas or academic files.

“I’m just happy that some of these bills are finally moving along,” Bergeson said. “There shouldn’t be any problem with them in the Senate.”

Royce said he was pleased by passage of his bill to help Vietnamese doctors denied medical licenses “by the Board of Medical Quality Assurance simply because the communist government of Vietnam is refusing to forward certified copies of their diplomas.”

The bill affects 33 Vietnamese refugees who were graduates of the University of Saigon Medical School. Among those who had testified earlier in committee hearings was Orange County resident Le Dao, who escaped Vietnam on a boat in 1978.

The courthouse construction bill adopted Tuesday increases penalty fees by $1.50 for each parking fine paid, and $2 for each $10 in fines paid on non-parking violations.

Hard Bargaining

The final version of the bill was the result of hard bargaining between legislative interests. Originally, such penalty surcharges were limited to a handful of counties, but the list grew to 21 to gain enough support from key areas of the state. The bill also was amended to allow some counties to raise both parking fine surcharges and non-parking penalties, while others would be able to raise only non-parking fines.

The embargo on Orange County bills was lifted Tuesday afternoon after an Assembly Democratic Caucus meeting. It had surfaced two weeks ago when Democrats and Republicans had stalemated over affirmative action goals added to another Bergeson bill. That measure was intended to allow Caltrans to contract with private firms for design and engineering work, thus speeding new highway construction.

The Democrats mustered enough votes last week to pass that bill in the Assembly, with the quotas intact, over strong Republican opposition. But Democrats had refused to allow other key Orange County measures to come to the Assembly floor for votes.

Tuesday morning, however, Assemblyman Gil Ferguson (R-Newport Beach) and other GOP caucus members said they were considering holding a news conference to attack the Assembly Speaker over the embargo, and would take up some of the bills over Brown’s objections.

Ferguson and other GOP legislators charged that Brown had stalled votes on Orange County measures in order to use the time to extract agreements from the Irvine Co. and other Orange County businesses on other issues, including two ballot initiatives under way to liberalize the state’s Gann spending limit.

Irvine Co. an Issue Itself

They also charged that the Irvine Co. had become an issue itself, because Assembly caucus members were angry about the company’s previous and prospective campaign contributions to Brown and other Democrats.

“They keep ponying up to Willie, and the Democrats keep putting things (quotas) in our bills that they know we won’t accept, so they can turn around and blame us,” Ferguson said.

Referring to the next reapportionment after the 1990 census, Ferguson said: “We’re closing in on the Democrats, and we’ve been telling not just the Irvine Co., but the business community in general, to slow down the contributions to Democrats.”

In the 1985-86 election period, the Irvine Co. gave $26,500 to the Assembly Speaker and $72,500 to the governor, according to Legitech, a subscription service that tracks campaign contributions and legislative activity. Figures for the current, non-election year were not immediately available.

Brown bristled at the Republicans’ suggestion that he was using the delay to negotiate deals and campaign-funding commitments. “If anybody truly believes that I did that, then let them go to the local authorities (district attorney) about it,” he said.

Ferguson and Assembly Minority Leader Pat Nolan (R-Glendale) said the GOP caucus would “dig in” against the Caltrans contracting bill if it went to a joint Senate conference committee, not only because of their objections to quotas, but also to get even with the Irvine Co., which had lobbied strongly in favor of the bill.

A ‘Bipartisan Issue’

Irvine Co. executive Jack Flannigan defended the firm’s campaign contributions to Democrats, saying that it sees transportation as a “bipartisan issue.”

Assembly Transportation Committee Chairman Richard Katz (D-Sepulveda) said that the hold placed on Orange County bills had been lifted because the issues, such as those related to the Gann Initiative, had been “resolved.” But he declined to elaborate.

Flannigan said Brown had asked the company to participate in a meeting with him and representatives from the California Teachers Assn. and other organizations about plans for initiative drives to liberalize the Gann spending limit.

The meeting took place two weeks ago, Flannigan said, and was not tied to any attempt by Brown to raise campaign funds. But he added it was unusual for a major campaign donor to be invited to such a meeting aimed at preventing a costly election battle next year involving the initiatives. “Nothing was resolved,” he said. “There was supposed to be a second meeting later. . . . But it was never held.”