Supervisors Complete Raise About-Face : Government: Everyone on the board now says they will vote to rescind the raise they approved for themselves earlier this week.

The Orange County Board of Supervisors, which just four days ago voted unanimously to hike its own salaries, completed an extraordinary about-face on Friday, as all five members lined up to rescind the 4% raise.

“It is important that, as a publicly elected official and member of the Orange County Board of Supervisors, I be responsive and responsible to the voices of my constituents,” Supervisor Harriett M. Wieder said in a prepared statement. “Therefore, I support the action of my fellow board members to rescind our salary increase.”

The statement from Wieder, who was out of town when two of her fellow supervisors first pitched the surprise idea Thursday of rescinding their $3,282 raises, eliminated the only real question mark among the five board members.

Hours after Wieder’s statement, Supervisor Thomas F. Riley--who had indicated grudging support for the proposal on Thursday--said his colleagues had his vote as well.

“I certainly believe now, knowing my colleagues, that there’s no point in opposing this,” Riley said. “It’ll be a 5 to 0 vote next week.”

Those comments appeared to seal the fate of the pay hike, which was fiercely defended by the board when it was approved Tuesday, but which saw its support collapse within 54 hours.

All that remains now is for the supervisors to vote officially Tuesday to rescind all or part of their pay hike package.

The turnaround on the issue began late Thursday when Supervisor Roger R. Stanton and Board Chairman Gaddi H. Vasquez called a press conference to announce that they had undergone a change of heart. Supervisor Don R. Roth said he would go along with them.

Vasquez and Stanton said they were making the move after receiving scores of calls from constituents--including many longtime friends and supporters--advising them to reconsider.

Friday, in the wake of their announcement, Vasquez said: “The phones in our office have been ringing steadily with people applauding us for taking this action.”

Of the board members, only Riley publicly expressed reservations about the reversal, complaining that his colleagues had pressed ahead without bothering to consult him.

Riley said he has called dozens of constituents during the past few days to explain why the raise was justified, and he felt his colleagues had abandoned him in their rush to score political points.

“It was a surprise to me,” Riley said. “I still haven’t met eye-to-eye with my two colleagues who had that press conference.”

But Stanton said he was surprised by Riley’s reaction, since he had phoned his fellow supervisor on Thursday to tell him of his plans.

In the rush to reverse field on the pay hike, some details were still being hammered out late Friday. Stanton was pushing for language that would allow the board to revoke the pay hike without scrapping a cap on supervisors’ salaries that was part of the original ordinance.

That proposal had not been delivered to the clerk of the Board of Supervisors by the end of the day, but it could still be added to the proposal Monday or even offered as an amendment during Tuesday’s meeting.

With the full Board of Supervisors in retreat, many of the residents who criticized the pay hike were now applauding the board for its willingness to reconsider. Opponents had argued that it was inappropriate to take a raise during a recession and at a time when shortfalls in the county budget had forced the first county government layoffs in 13 years.

Ray Harbour of Garden Grove, a spokesman for a fledgling anti-tax group known as the Taxpayers Action Network, echoed the views of many in that group when he called the supervisors’ initial proposal “tacky.”

But on behalf of the network, Harbour congratulated the supervisors for reconsidering.

“One turn deserves another,” Harbour said. “When something like this happens, we like to acknowledge it.”

But that feeling was far from unanimous, and critics were still talking Thursday about launching initiative drives to restrict pay hikes for public officials or pursuing other forms of political retaliation.

“I think it’s obvious that they (the supervisors) met with their consultants, and spoke with them about this issue,” said Tim Miller, president of the local Service Employees International Union, which represents about 600 county maintenance workers. “But I don’t think this is the last of this. Their jobs are still in jeopardy.”