ORANGE COUNTY VOICES : Quest to Revise Regional Planning : Any effort to reform the process would need to recognize the importance of coordination with neighboring regions.

Orange County’s quest to restructure the regional planning process does not signify a retreat behind the fabled “Orange Curtain,” as some have suggested. The effort is a natural progression of planning accomplishments by local jurisdictions--cities, the county of Orange and the Orange County Transportation Authority--over the past five years.

During the period, Orange County governments and agencies forged the state’s first Proposition 111 Congestion Management Program, the Southern California regions’ first voter-approved countywide growth management program, and a variety of other programs, including high occupancy vehicle lanes and expanded rail transit, designed to deliver improved air quality and other benefits to the region.

In many cases, these innovative programs were achieved in spite of the Southern California Assn. of Governments (SCAG) rather than with its concurrence and assistance.

To completely comprehend Orange County’s concerns for effective regional planning, a snapshot of the current system is in order.

Regional planning is the responsibility of SCAG. Formed in 1965, SCAG also conducts regional planning and oversees the local efforts of a six-county region that includes nearly 200 cities. Imperial, Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside, San Bernardino and Ventura counties are in the SCAG region.

Other questions linger in the arrangement.

For example, should representatives from Imperial County vote on transportation projects in Orange County? No. Yet that is the situation inherent in the current regional planning process.

All of this doesn’t mean Orange County should closet itself away from issues, such as air quality and transportation, that truly impact the region.

But we have agencies in place (the South Coast Air Quality Management District and the Southern California Regional Authority, for example) that are designed to assure that countywide plans conform to regional concerns.

Regional planning reform discussions in Orange County have never focused on erecting a wall at the county’s borders.

Dialogue has been and is underway with neighboring jurisdictions and counties on a variety of transportation and other regional issues.

Any effort to reform the process would need to recognize the importance of coordination with neighboring regions much as the SCAG region should be interfacing with San Diego but doesn’t at the present time.

SCAG, in an effort to respond to some of these criticisms, recently adopted bylaw amendments that create a 67-member Executive Committee to seek broader-based input for its regional planning process.

The State Legislature provides a wonderful working model by which to assess this new proposal’s potential for expanded local involvement and more effective regional planning.

About 35 of the SCAG region’s 190 cities voted on the proposal along with two of the region’s six counties, Ventura and Riverside.

Perhaps we should stop trying to prop up an organization where less than 20% of the membership care to vote on proposals designed to reform it.