Family Feud Festers Between County and City Officials

Nothing brings out that old fighting spirit like arguments over money and control. You start losing either one of them and watch the potential for warfare.

Witness the current coolness between City Hall and the county. It’s by no means open warfare, but the longtime cohabitants of our little patch of ground here in Orange County continue to redefine who’s in charge.

As in any family, when things are fine, they’re fine. It’s easy to overlook how close to the surface the tensions can be.

But when fundamental questions of money or power arise, niceties can disappear in a hurry.

When the Sheriff’s Department asked voters last year to ante up for a new jail in Gypsum Canyon, residents of Anaheim, Yorba Linda and surrounding neighborhoods fought the county relentlessly. And now that the Board of Supervisors wants to expand Theo Lacy Jail, the city officials in Orange plan to sue the county. This all plays against the backdrop of cities throughout the state being forced to pay fees for the first time to book prisoners into county jails.

“I think we’re kind of at a low ebb (in city-county relations), and this (the Orange lawsuit) is just the kind of situation that happens when you get into these difficult times,” said Dwight Stenbakken, the legislative director of the League of California Cities. “Just in general, there are so few options available within the structure of government as a result of initiatives that we tend to go after one another’s throats more often than we used to.”

Newport Beach City Manager Robert L. Wynn, about to wind up a long career in local government, said he has seen the increase in tension during his tenure. “Twenty years ago there was very, very good cooperation between the county and the cities, but as the state pinches the county . . . the county’s got to do something to balance, and I think they’ve done that by pinching the cities.”

Wynn doesn’t necessarily blame the county because, he said, the state has saddled it with operating increasingly expensive programs.

A big part of the problem, Stenbakken said, is that counties are losing their share of the revenue pie. “Pre-Proposition 13, cities and counties got along better. That doesn’t mean there weren’t disagreements then, but at that point there wasn’t that finite pot of money. Each jurisdiction had the ability to kind of chart its own destiny by setting taxes on its own and to fund services they perceived either the local community wanted or demanded. Once Proposition 13 hit, they didn’t have that situation anymore, especially in counties. Cities continued to have some flexibility in revenue-raising that counties didn’t have.”

Orange City Manager Ron Thompson agreed that relations are at a low point but added: “I think you can disagree without being disagreeable, because we have to work with the county on a number of different fronts. I think the citizens get more for their money--and that’s the bottom line--if you don’t go to war over every issue, and you try to come up with a win-win situation.”

Laguna Beach Mayor Robert F. Gentry acknowledged the current dip in relations but said he thinks an improved economy will help. “There’s no question that the economic condition in California has pitted county against cities and vice versa, because so often the money flows from the state to the county to the city,” he said.

“In times of economic strife, you see counties doing things like booking fees and other things, going after monies that cities typically held onto, so there’s become quite a bit of tension because a turf war is going on,” he said. “But that’s a direct result of the economic times.”

Gentry characterized local city-county relations as “fairly good, but it depends on the issue.” Generally speaking, he said, the county has been more pro-growth than cities, but the county has provided excellent public-safety help, for example.

Gentry also cited the county’s help in closing Laguna Beach’s deal in 1990 with the Irvine Co. over buying Laguna Canyon, land that was slated for development but now is to become a regional park.

No one is suggesting that county government can or should disappear.

In fact, Bill Hodge, the executive director of the League of California Cities in Orange County, said the county will probably revert to the more traditional role of counties: administering such programs as health and human services and operating the criminal justice system.

“In Orange County, because there were a lot of unincorporated areas that developed in the 1970s, you saw the county provide a lot of municipal services, because it was, in essence, City Hall,” Hodge said. “With all the incorporation (in recent years), the unincorporated areas dwindled considerably.”

So perhaps we should take the longer view. Maybe what we’re witnessing between city and county aren’t spastic fratricidal bloodlettings but inevitable and historical rites of passage.

“There’s been a struggle for authority or control or power between cities and counties, and this has evolved,” Wynn said. “Ninety years ago, there’s no argument that the county was the prime jurisdiction, but as counties have become more incorporated, then cities believe the county should diminish much of their authority.”

The only question is whether the county will give up that authority quietly--or with a fight.