ORANGE COUNTY VOICES : Charters Have Their Own Limits

Once again, the question of whether Orange County should adopt a charter or remain a general-law county has been raised. Since this issue has been studied and considered in the past, it might help to see what was learned in the most recent study and why the recommendation was made that the county not adopt a charter.

To understand the arguments about a county having a charter, a few basic legal facts have to be recognized. Legally speaking, counties are subdivisions of the state. They are not comparable to states in the federal union, but were created to administer state policy at the local level. In addition, unincorporated areas--county territory not part of cities--are governed by county government.

Counties are also not comparable to cities. Cities are municipal corporations formed to govern defined local areas. Cities are not instruments of state government.

Both cities and counties can have charters in California, but counties actually have a more limited scope of authority than cities whether chartered or not. Why then would a county want a charter and what can it do under a charter that it can’t do under general law without one?

The biggest difference between a charter and general-law county is in the Board of Supervisors. A general-law county has five board members, but a charter county can have more. For example, Los Angeles recently expanded its board, and there is talk of a further increase.

A vacancy on the board in a general-law county is filled by an appointment by the governor, as was the case with Supervisors Thomas F. Riley and Gaddi H. Vasquez. A charter can fill a board vacancy by a special election, by appointment by the remaining board members or by some other method.

By charter, a county can create a city and county like San Francisco. This can’t be done in a general-law county.

By the state Constitution, the board is the governing body of a county, but a charter can place limits on that power.

Finally, a charter can set the board’s compensation or tie it to another office, for example to that of a Superior Court judge.

Another difference is that a charter county can consolidate more offices than a general-law county and make more offices elective. Also, matters usually dealt with by a county ordinance can be placed in the charter. To some, this might appear to be an advantage, but a charter study commission in 1980 felt that doing this limits the flexibility that is important in our fast-changing society.

In this regard, one major consideration of the study commission on whether to recommend that Orange County adopt a charter was that any change must be submitted to the voters. To some, this is desirable, but in 1980, when we considered the subject, it appeared to most of the commission that this has proved to be both cumbersome and expensive for charter counties because voters in general-law counties have the right of initiative and the board has the right to submit issues to the voters without authorization by charter.

We, therefore, after weighing all points of view, concluded that a charter was not advisable. In a sense, our recommendation to the Board of Supervisors was a reflection of the adage, “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.” So we were not convinced that the changes that a charter would make in Orange County would be an overall improvement after observing the problems created by the inflexibility of a charter.

Times do, and have changed, but I hope that past studies will not be ignored. It may be that on reflection, new and good reasons to adopt a charter can be found, but in searching for these reasons it is important to remember that good government is more the result of good people than the result of a good system.

A charter might allow the good people in government to be more effective and efficient, but no system, general law or charter, can make incompetents competent or inept public officials effective.

Therefore, the first question voters should ask is could government work better with better people in office. If the answer is yes, the first step should be to change the people and then explore what changes should be made in the system in order to allow these good people to reach their full potential. In other words, to change the system without making certain that good people are in office, will result in no change in the quality of government.