For Regional Government

Southern California, lurching toward full status as a nation state, can shake off the challenges of explosive growth only if it can tackle them on the scale of an authentic, elected regional government.

This region of California alone now ranks among the top countries of the world as an economic force. Its economic vibrancy and cultural diversity begs for government that can respond to needs for transportation, clean air, waste disposal and other public services across the broadest spectrum. The challenge cannot be met with an assortment of special-purpose agencies, no matter how competent, all looking at a range of problems from the perspective of just one. Nor can the power to plan without the power to implement do the job. Such a fundamental change cannot happen overnight, or even in a matter of years, but it should be the enduring goal.

The most recent illustration of the need involves a squabble between two major agencies in the campaign to control smog in the region. At issue is a Sacramento bill to raise automobile license fees to pay for street improvements that will make traffic move faster. That becomes an air-quality concern because automobile engines idling along in traffic jams are more polluting than engines running at cruising speed. And the bill would channel the funds through the South Coast Air Quality Management District, which is responsible for setting and enforcing clean-air standards, rather than the Southern California Assn. of Governments, a planning agency that works for six county and more than 100 city governments. The association wants control over the license fees, saying that it is in a better position to plan and coordinate projects at the city level.

A strong element in the falling out is the political composition of the two bodies. The planning agency’s base consists solely of elected officials who represent Southern California. The smog district’s base is more mixed, with some policy members who hold elective office and others who are appointed by the governor and Legislature. Thus the planning agency says it is closer to the grass roots than the air-quality district. And the air-quality agency is often described, particularly by critics of its regulations, as a rootless bureaucracy of smog troopers. The fact that a law sponsored last year by Assemblyman Byron Sher (D-Palo Alto) puts responsibility for cleaning up the air directly on the air-quality district is shrugged off by its critics as not germane.

The planning agency’s executive committee wants Gov. George Deukmejian to veto the bill that would add $4 a year to automobile license fees in all California smog control districts to pay for street improvements. They note, for example, that they wrote the transportation aspects of the air plan and are closer to the cities. Ironically, most of the bill that raises license fees, SB 120, sponsored by Sen. Robert Presley (D-Riverside) has nothing to do with the money. It calls, among other things, for more roll-call votes on important issues and more open distribution of staff analysis backing up proposed regulations to make the district more accountable and less aloof.

The procedural changes, the law that holds the district accountable for transportation measures, and the need not to lose time on projects, argue for the governor’s signature, even though either agency could probably handle the job.

But the governor should go beyond that, taking the lead, for example, in a first smart step toward regional government for Southern California. He could start by trying to persuade this region to adopt a pattern set by the San Francisco Bay Area that blends the efforts of its air, transportation and general government activities over a nine-county region so that squabbles like that between Southern California’s air district and planning agency need not arise.

For example, a single Metropolitan Transportation Commission covers all nine counties of the Bay Area. Los Angeles County alone has two transportation commissions, one for the Southern California Rapid Transit District, another to plan transit networks and allocate sales tax funds earmarked for transportation. In transportation, it’s every other county for itself.

The air quality district in the Bay Area shares responsibility for meeting standards with other agencies because the nine counties had their act together. They told Sacramento they wanted it that way and the Legislature was happy to oblige. No such request has ever come from fragmented Southern California.

Two years ago Assembly Speaker Willie L. Brown Jr. ordered a study of what he called a “haphazard, random assortment of governing bodies all fighting over the same dollars and all contributing to a service delivery system that is more of a crazy quilt than a safety net.” He could help contribute by suggesting to his analysts that there is new evidence of urgency about what he then envisioned as “a reorganization of government along regional lines.”

Southern California is merely uncomfortable with congestion and pollution today. But if its cities and counties continue to insist on having everything their way, on pulling in every which direction, it will not be long before it is overwhelmed by traffic jams and smog.