Some Resolutions for the New Century : Orange County 2000 Idea Can Help the Future Work

As we enter 1991 in Orange County, one thing is disturbingly obvious: The same troubling problems that we took into the decade remain unsolved.

Indeed, the county wrestled all through the 1980s and even earlier with the deteriorating quality of our air and water, growing traffic congestion, the debate over where to locate a new jail and airport and how to provide more affordable housing.

So how can we expect 1991, or the year 2000, to be any different?

One possible answer is the Orange County 2000 Committee idea that is being proposed by the same coalition of civic and government leaders that successfully campaigned for Measure M, the half-cent sales tax for transportation. A new 2000 group would focus on the county’s future and solutions to its major problems.

Orange County needs that long view desperately. It needs innovative thinking. Vision. Coordinated action. It needs to provide those responsible for the decisions on the county’s future with the direction they need to move wisely and deliberately, instead of continuing merely to react to crises. We should be beneficiaries, not victims, of growth.

The idea is not new. More than 20 years ago, the Board of Supervisors appointed the Citizens Direction Finding Commission, but the board never gave the group the serious standing it should have received. The approach worked better in Los Angeles recently, where a broad-based citizens group, the Los Angeles 2000 Committee, worked for two years studying the city’s destiny. One of its major conclusions was that many problems were regional and could not be contained by borders drawn on a map. The committee recommended regionwide solutions and cooperation. Its work was so well regarded that a “2000 Partnership” group was formed to implement recommendations.

But how can such work be successful if the rest of the region remains oblivious to the problems and the need for a cooperative assault on them? Orange County should form its own Committee 2000, with the blessing of local governments. This time, however, the project must be taken more seriously.

We are now working on a new year. Soon it will be 2000, and if we don’t get busy it will be here long before we are even close to finding ways to make it more livable. The county can’t keep dragging its problems, unsolved, into new years, decades and centuries. Orange County 2000 could help break that vicious cycle. It’s well worth a try.