Lack of Quorum Cancels Forum

For the first time in decades Wednesday, the Orange County Board of Supervisors met for a regularly scheduled meeting but couldn’t conduct business.

Supervisor Harriett M. Wieder was on vacation in the Soviet Union, Supervisor Roger R. Stanton was on a 3-day holiday and Supervisor Gaddi H. Vasquez had to leave town unexpectedly Tuesday evening because of a family emergency.

That left only Board Chairman Thomas F. Riley and Supervisor Don R. Roth to oversee the three public hearings that were on the board’s Wednesday agenda. By law, it takes three supervisors to constitute a quorum.

County Counsel Adrian Kuyper did some hasty research and found two state statutes that allowed the hearings to be postponed until next Wednesday. He said later that in the 30 years he has been with the county legal department, 24 of them as the board’s chief lawyer, he has never known the supervisors to be unable to take any action because not enough of them showed up.

“They sometimes don’t put anything on an agenda when they realize that some of them are going to be out but well in advance,” Kuyper said of the supervisors. “Every January, they block out the days that the board will be dark, like holidays.”

Riley said that postponing the matters for a week would not cause any problems. One involves a proposal to increase by 50% the parking fee at the public lot next to the Hall of Administration in Santa Ana, where the supervisors meet.