Countywide : Supervisors Reverse Support for Merger

The highly touted merger of Orange County’s major transportation agencies, designed to improve accountability and coordination of policy decisions, was derailed Friday.

Reversing their earlier support for merger legislation in Sacramento, Supervisors Don R. Roth, Roger R. Stanton and Thomas F. Riley voted at a planning meeting in Santa Ana to oppose consolidation of the Orange County Transportation Commission and the Orange County Transit District. They said a new governing board dominated by the county’s cities would permit the two existing agencies to function much as they do now, saving little or no money.

State Sen. Marian Bergeson (R-Newport Beach), who has worked for more than two years on the legislation, could not be reached for comment. Stanton said the bill, SB 838, is probably dead for this year.

The legislation was scuttled in 1988 when cities and the county could not agree on the composition of a new governing board.

A compromise was reached earlier this year, however, with membership set at six city representatives and four county supervisors, with a public member to be selected by the 10 other members.

“I was never a great fan of this bill in the first place,” said Roth, who sits on the transit district board. “I objected to the cities having more say on the new governing board than the county. And there’s really no purpose to consolidation if it’s not going to be real. I don’t see where the great efficiency gains are going to come from.”

But Santa Ana Councilwoman Patricia A. McGuigan, president of the Orange County League of Cities, said she was surprised and disappointed.

“We’ve been trying to do something constructive to help transportation in this county for years,” she said, “and here we are, after the bill is already approved by the Assembly Transportation Committee and is on its way to Assembly Ways and Means. We feel there is a need to do this now for the citizens of Orange County.”