COUNTYWIDE : Vasquez Passes Gavel With Fiscal Warning

Supervisor Gaddi H. Vasquez ended his one-year term as chairman of the board Tuesday with a dire prediction, warning that the county faces “an unprecedented financial challenge of mammoth proportions.”

Before passing the chairman’s gavel to Supervisor Roger R. Stanton for 1992, Vasquez ticked off a long list of county accomplishments from the last year, in law enforcement, health care, rural preservation and other “successes.”

But Vasquez’s message was nonetheless somber, as he focused his farewell on the mounting financial problems plaguing the county.

Through fiscal maneuvering and some program cuts, the county last year eliminated a budget shortfall of $65 million. But with state money limited, the deficit for the coming year is expected to surpass that total, so county officials are worried.

“It’s no longer business as usual,” Vasquez said. “We are going to have to change the way we do things. The public is demanding it, and we are right to make the necessary changes.

“Ideological dinosaurs and administrators who practice ancient policies and principles will fail, and fail miserably, in the years ahead. We will all have to retool the way we deliver services by becoming more efficient and by recognizing that the resources of the past will not be available.”

Vasquez used the budget topic to point up one of his most popular themes: the need for privatization in county services. A county commission recommended last year that the county look at contracting out 56 public services, ranging from tree-trimming and school-crossing guards to harbor and landfill operations.

Vasquez urged the board Tuesday to move ahead with privatization this year and put the county “on the cutting edge for counties” in the state.

The chairmanship is rotated annually among the five supervisors. Stanton was originally expected to take over as chairman at next week’s meeting--when he will give his own state-of-the-county address--but the transfer was moved up for scheduling reasons, Vasquez said.

As Stanton became chairman Tuesday for the third time since 1983, Supervisor Harriett M. Wieder also took over as vice chairwoman for the next year.

Vasquez later said he is giving up the chairmanship with “mixed emotions.” While the job has many rewards, he said, it will be nice “to take a respite from the volume of administration. . . . In that regard, there is some sense of relief.”

Indeed, just minutes after the ceremonial transfer of power Tuesday, Stanton was faced with his first controversy. He presided over a lengthy public hearing that included often-angry appeals from more than a dozen people who urged the supervisors to allow an auto-detailing firm in Sunset Beach to stay in business.

The public protests failed, as the board voted unanimously to uphold a decision two months ago by the county Planning Commission, which found that the shop--KC Detailing Center on Pacific Coast Highway--does not have enough parking to gain a permit. Shop owner Casy Schlick said he plans to sue the county to prevent closure of his business.