Regional Approach Kept Oftelie on Top : * OCTA Chief Retained Post With Big-Picture Expertise

Shrewdness and insider knowledge have strengthened the hand of Stanley Oftelie, chief executive officer of the Orange County Transportation Authority. But the recent decision to keep him on also says something about the coming of age of a regional approach to transportation policy for Orange County.

Recently, the board of the newly formed authority voted by an 11-0 margin to retain Oftelie. It was a remarkable moment for the transportation czar, who often has been the target of criticism from some of the very officials who gave him a unanimous vote of confidence. The decision was in part testimony to Oftelie’s political skill--his facility for combining humor and a familiarity with complex transportation issues to win friends and influence people, while doing the board’s bidding. It was not so long ago, after all, that he was arguing for the successful merger of the old Orange County Transit District and the Orange County Transportation Commission, where he was an executive, and saying in the same breath that he recognized that a streamlined commission might not have a place for him in its unified command.

One secret to Oftelie’s survival is that, like many executives serving at the pleasure of public boards, he has recognized that public statements can be driven as much by parochial politics as by policy. He thus has survived the early going of the new authority by withstanding the public criticism of representatives of various cities. They have been concerned that the larger county transportation agency wasn’t doing enough for them, and that it was too inclined to do the bidding of the Board of Supervisors. Meanwhile, Oftelie worked with representatives to bring them up to speed on complicated regional transportation matters. His ability to make himself useful helps explain the paradox of anti-Oftelie rhetoric in the League of Cities and the unanimous vote for him by the 11-member board of the new transportation authority, six of whose members are appointed by the league.

What’s new in the political equation now is the growing expectation of newcomers to the transportation table, the representatives of recently incorporated South County cities. The potential for north-south friction over who gets what from the transportation pie is evident in the reservations about Oftelie expressed by San Juan Capistrano Councilman Gary L. Hausdorfer, one of the new representatives on OCTA; he complains, for example, that “a large number of cities (are) not well-versed on transportation.”

But beyond the politics and the jockeying for inside knowledge and position lies a more profound shift evident in the consolidation of transportation authority in Orange County in one agency. Increasingly, local officials are won over to a regional perspective largely because a regional approach to solving transportation problems makes the most sense. And Oftelie is a leading proponent of that view.

While every municipality understandably wants its own pet projects, the dwindling transportation dollar--and the commitments already made with the passage of Measure M, the transportation sales tax--dictates that the county make transportation decisions on a regional basis.

The consolidation of power by the authority’s top executive represents a personal triumph for him, but it also signals the persuasiveness of his arguments for taking the big picture into account.