ANAHEIM : Economic Advisory Board May Vanish

Despite lagging tourist and sales tax revenues, the City Council may abolish its Economic Development Board, saying the nine members have not met in at least a year and have offered few suggestions.

The council on Tuesday instructed its staff to draw up a resolution to abolish the board, indicating it would approve the measure in two weeks.

“My feeling is that if you have a board, it should either be active or off the books,” Councilman William D. Ehrle said Wednesday. Ehrle helped create the panel four years ago.

The panel was established to “make recommendations to the City Council concerning the promotion of business and economic opportunity.”

But some board members said Wednesday the body could meet only when called together by the council.

Board member Fred W. Bercher, plant manager of the Delco-Remy auto parts factory, said he and other members had asked that a meeting be called to discuss the city’s financial predicament but that none was ever scheduled.

“Don’t you think it’s important that the public sector be involved in the city’s development?” Bercher said. “I’ve asked several times when we would have a meeting, but there didn’t seem to be much inclination on the council’s part to include us. But it wasn’t for lack of incentive by the members that the board didn’t meet.”

Board member Dennis Hardin, an auto dealer who also serves as president of the Anaheim Chamber of Commerce, said the board should be disbanded if it is not going to be used.

“There is a lot of talent on that board that could have given counsel and advice to the city on developing its economic base, particularly retail and manufacturing,” he said.

But William Taormina, another member and president of Anaheim Disposal, said he thought that the board had outlived its usefulness.

“It was a good idea once,” he said, “but many of its functions have been taken over by other departments.”

Ehrle said the board was formed to consider the feasibility of such projects as redeveloping Anaheim Plaza, the city’s aging shopping center, and building a proposed auto center along the Orange Freeway.

He added that the board accomplished its original mission but that analysis of new projects has fallen to the Private Industry Council and the Chamber of Commerce.

The board has been inactive so long that it is unclear when it last met and who presides as its chairman. Officials in the city clerk’s office were unable to say when the panel last met.

Ron Rothschild, administrative services director and the board’s staff adviser, said the board last met about a year ago. But Bercher said it was at least two years since the last meeting.

Adding to the confusion over the board’s status, Rothschild said Taormina was chairman, but Taormina said he quit that post two years ago.

Shortly after the board was formed, Rothschild said, it produced a long-term economic development plan for the city. Once that was accomplished, he said, there was little left for the panel to do.