ORANGE COUNTY PERSPECTIVE : Slowing Down a Deal

Part-time commissioners such as Ed Conway, Larry Luera and Sally White of the Harbors, Beaches and Parks Commission are not often in the limelight in Orange County government and politics. But they deserve the public’s attention and appreciation when they make an independent call in the best interest of the taxpayer, even if it means going against some powerful political sentiment.

Their three votes in a 3-3 tie last week left the commission without the majority needed to recommend extending prematurely a private firm’s lease at one of the county’s publicly owned marinas. They resisted high-level pressure to extend the agreement eight years before it was to expire.

Had the commission approved, Goldrich & Kest Inc., operator of the Sunset Marina Park at Huntington Harbour, would have been closer to winning the extension without competitive bidding. Critics correctly pointed out that the county might benefit by waiting until the lease expires in 1999.

There were too many questions to sign off easily. The firm had been cited repeatedly for substandard maintenance. The proposal had come under fire because in 1989 and 1990 the firm was represented in its lease-renewal negotiations by Lee E. Wieder, the son of county Supervisor Harriett M. Wieder, whose district encompasses the marina.

The chief deputy director for the county Environmental Management Agency said after the vote that the agency would make “an appropriate recommendation” eventually to the supervisors, who have the ability to approve or kill the lease deal. But in raising doubt about the wisdom of rubber-stamping the renewal, the commissioners denied those pushing it the imprimatur of an important county board. They also may have saved the county money over the long term.