Top County Leaders Back a Pullout From SCAG

Top county officials voted Friday to support a bill pending in the Legislature that could lead to the formation of a county-run metropolitan planning agency and a pullout from the Southern California Assn. of Governments, known as SCAG.

County officials who support a separate agency said SCAG is outmoded, biased toward Los Angeles County and incapable of serving Orange County’s long-term transportation and environmental planning needs.

SCAG is a 25-year-old regional planning agency made up of representatives from six counties and 143 cities.

Supervisor Thomas F. Riley said, “SCAG is not providing the leadership that is in Orange County’s best interest.”

Riley on Friday presided over a meeting of the county’s Legislative Planning Committee, which voted unanimously to support the bill.

The committee is composed of all five county supervisors and county department heads. Supervisors Harriett M. Wieder and Don R. Roth were absent. Wieder said later that she approves of the bill but thinks it’s too soon to say whether the county will pull out of SCAG.

The talk of a pullout dismayed Don Griffin, SCAG’s president and a Buena Park City Council member.

“I would like to think that Orange County is a partner with other counties of Southern California and is willing to work with them on issues of common interest,” he said Friday.

Mark Pisano, executive director of SCAG, said debate on the issue during the next several months could deflect attention away from a major regional growth, transportation and air quality plan that must be finished by September.

“If Orange County were to become a separate planning organization in the future, those plans could be affected, because they are regional in nature,” Pisano said.

Griffin called for a dialogue between SCAG and its critics to resolve problems.

Five officials from Orange County are on SCAG’s executive board: Griffin; Wieder; Supervisor Gaddi H. Vasquez; Norma Arias Hicks, a Brea City Council member, and Robert F. Gentry, mayor pro-tem of Laguna Beach. Sixteen of the 26 cities in Orange County are members of SCAG.

The other counties that are members are Los Angeles, Ventura, Riverside, Imperial and San Bernardino.

Would Lose Share of Budget

Orange County could leave SCAG at any time, but it would lose a share of the agency’s $8-million annual budget in state and federal money, of which about $1.6 million is spent on programs relating specifically to the county.

But if a county-run metropolitan planning agency were formed, it could snare that money.

Wieder said the bill was the idea of the county Transportation Commission, which would be an integral part of any planning agency operated by the county.

The bill’s purpose, she said, is to act as a “safety net” in case the county later decides that getting out of SCAG is best.

County officials persuaded state Sen. Marian Bergeson (R-Newport Beach) to sponsor the measure, introduced in the Legislature on Feb. 19 as Senate Bill 2625.