Supervisors Sworn In, See Challenges : Government: Now that the ceremonies are over, leaders face the reality of difficult financial times for the county.

Three Orange County supervisors--with more than three decades of experience among them--were sworn in for new terms Monday as an audience packed with elected officials and local business leaders looked on.

Supervisors Harriett M. Wieder, Don R. Roth and Thomas F. Riley each took the oath of office during a gala board session, with the room decked in red, white and blue bunting. For Riley, it was the 78-year-old retired general’s first appearance since open heart surgery last month, and the audience warmly welcomed him back to his post.

“Even a mob of doctors and nurses can’t keep Gen. Tom Riley from his rounds,” said state Sen. Marian Bergeson, who administered the oath to Riley.

Roth took the oath from one of his sons while the other held the Bible; Wieder received it from Sheila Prell Sonenshine, an associate justice on the 4th District Court of Appeal. Both beamed as they stepped into their new terms.

But come today the board gets back to business. As it does, the mantle of leadership will pass to Supervisor Gaddi H. Vasquez, who becomes chairman of the five-member board, the first Latino ever to hold that office.

Vasquez takes his new title amid a period of great financial difficulty.

The county is slowly but surely going broke, with finance officials desperately--and probably vainly--hoping for relief from an impoverished state government. Health and legal services for the poor have already absorbed huge cuts and are braced for more: In his budget package last week, Gov. Pete Wilson has proposed that the state walk away from public health altogether, saddling county governments with that responsibility in return for new funding to cover the cost. Although Wilson’s proposal would cover the cost of providing health care at the county level, at least for the coming year, county officials fear that the first-year funding would not keep pace with demand.

And inmates continue pouring into a county jail system that is already overflowing, and the sheriff releases thousands of prisoners early every year just to make room for new arrivals.

“Gaddi is going to have his hands full,” Roth, the outgoing chairman, said in an interview last week. “It’s going to be a very, very difficult year.”

If the prospect of a dwindling budget and bursting jail cells trouble Vasquez as he settles into the chairman’s seat, he’s not letting on--at least not much.

“I’ve always looked at episodes like this as opportunities,” Vasquez said. “Yes, they are challenges, but they’re also opportunities. So I’m driven by the hope, the ideal, that we can make a difference.”

The first opportunities to act will come quickly, as the county is just beginning to sort out Wilson’s budget package. The governor has proposed slashing Aid to Families With Dependent Children, the state’s largest welfare program, and local officials worry that Orange County’s growing population of poor people could be badly hurt by that cut.

What seems additionally clear is that there will be little money in the county budget to offset that reduction--or any other one that the state government approves. Already the county has imposed a hiring and construction freeze, and much ballyhooed projects such as a South County government center, increased sheriff’s patrols and a new jail are hung up in the funding shortfall.

“It’s such a downer. It’s discouraging to me,” Roth said. “From the closeness I’ve had to the budget this year, I consider it very scary.”

Roth’s dire warnings of an impending budget crisis helped prod his sometimes-reluctant colleagues last year. When the board balked at imposing a jail-booking fee on cities and school district security forces, for instance, Roth held firm, and eventually the board backed the fee.

Vasquez is less prone to mix it up politically. He deplores what he calls “confrontational politics.”

In good times, that approach serves Vasquez well and has helped make him a perennial prospect for higher office.

Vasquez says he will be firm and promises that he will unveil several new initiatives in his chairmanship speech next week.

The private sector, Vasquez said, can provide the engine to power the county out of its current woes.

“For a couple of years now we’ve deferred capital improvements and facilities because the budget cannot shoulder the cost,” he said, adding that to proceed with such improvements “is going to require a public-private partnership.”

That’s hardly a new idea, but it’s one that has great resonance in conservative Orange County. What remains to be seen is whether the private sector will show as much interest in it as the government has.

For Vasquez, the challenge will be to interest businesses in such investments at the same time that he juggles the competing demands of public agencies lobbying for diminishing funds.

“I’d like,” he said, “to be able to know that at the end of the ‘90s we can say: You know, the ‘90s were a difficult time, but we retooled, and now we’re ready to go into the 21st Century.”