ORANGE COUNTY PERSPECTIVE : Contagious Disease of Committee-itis

When in doubt, local governments often form a committee. But beware such unintended consequences of committee-itis as the guarding of turf and the swelling of egos. And then there’s that bane of fiscal prudence, the padding of the municipal budget.

At a time when everybody is trying to find ways to cut, it makes sense to do what the City Council in Irvine is endeavoring to accomplish. It is trying bravely to reduce the number of commissions that have been authorized over the years to look into various issues. This year-end pruning around the hedges of City Hall is a good example for other communities looking for ways to save some money.

But, alas, committees and commissions do not seem to go gracefully into retirement. In Irvine, the city has accumulated a 10-page list of advisory boards created during the city’s 19-year history. The various committees and commissions cost the city about $500,000 annually.

In all, Irvine, with a population less than half the size of Santa Ana, has 67 assorted advisory boards to its neighbor’s 11. Anaheim, another big Orange County city, has disciplined itself along the way so that it has only 13 committees. Irvine has no target goal for the number of committees it wants to cut, but it recognizes that it has too many of them. It will eliminate some, consolidate others, and in the process no doubt affirm the value of those that remain.

The trick for Irvine, and other communities so afflicted, is to weed out commissions that duplicate services without punishing those whose chief offense is controversy.

An example of the latter is the 2-year-old Citizens Advisory Committee on International Affairs, targeted for the ax. It has become a symbol for the far-flung concerns of the administration of former Mayor Larry Agran, now so out of fashion in the council chambers. The committee is too big, all right. But reorganize it; don’t eliminate it. There is a place for symbolic expressions, such as the committee’s recent recommendation that, at official functions, the city boycott coffee grown in El Salvador.

The best place to focus is on committees that duplicate efforts or whose task is done. For example, even the members of the Public Safety Commission, another endangered committee, have been asking what their purpose is these days.

Then there are groups such as the Pelican Hills Road Monitoring Committee and the Peters Canyon Wash Open Space Spine Monitoring Committee. Cities can economize on both money--and words--by eliminating committees such as these.