Countywide

County Supervisor George Bailey served notice Tuesday on fellow board members that he wants to cut down on the number of county committees, boards, task forces, commissions and other advisory groups.

He said he knows of advisory groups that haven’t met for a year or more, and he asked supervisors to declare a moratorium on the creation of any new ones until a census has been taken of existing groups, their duties and their performance records. The board denied the moratorium request.

Bailey’s proposal was made as the board acted to approve a county counsel report on providing legal services to members of county advisory groups if they are sued for actions taken as part of their county duties.

He said he does not object to the county providing legal representation to the volunteer groups, but said he “can’t support any new ones until we know what we’ve got now.”

“We need to clean house, to consolidate” through use of sunset provisions, which would dissolve some committees, and consolidation to avoid duplication and overlapping, Bailey said.

Supervisors agreed that a review of the board-appointed bodies is in order and set a conference on the subject for early next year, but it did not go along with a moratorium on creation of new groups.

The board agreed earlier to provide legal representation to county advisory groups after a lawsuit was filed against members of the Valley Center Municipal Water District and after Fallbrook Planning Group members refused to conduct business because of threatened legal action by disgruntled members.