L.A. Mayor Helps Block County’s Exit From SCAG

Los Angeles Mayor Tom Bradley has intervened to help kill an amendment that would have made it easier for Orange County to secede from the Southern California Assn. of Governments.

Rep. Norman Y. Mineta (D-San Jose) blocked the amendment in the House Committee on Public Works and Transportation after Bradley phoned him last Wednesday, according to James McConnell, Orange County’s lobbyist in Washington, and aides to Mineta and Bradley.

Bradley told Mineta, chairman of the surface transportation subcommittee, that “a regional council of governments should not be splintered with various cities given the authority to withdraw from this organization,” according to Bradley spokeswoman Vallee Bunting. “The mayor has been kept apprised of the situation by Congressman Mineta, who is continuing his work to reach an agreement that is fair and reasonable to all concerned.”

Eric K. Federing, Mineta’s press secretary, said on Monday that Mineta already was opposed to the amendment that Orange County wanted.

“He was trying to work out a compromise, which is what in fact happened, and Bradley was just another one of the people he had spoken to on the issue,” Federing said.

The compromise being proposed on the House floor would allow creation of a new planning organization if members representing 75% of SCAG’s area approve. The existing rules, SCAG officials contend, would require ratification by members representing at least 75% of the population within SCAG’s current boundaries to create a new agency. Los Angeles County is the most populous but not the largest of the counties in SCAG.

Orange County officials have talked about seceding from SCAG, a six-county, regional planning organization, for more than a decade, largely because Orange County officials believe that SCAG caters to Los Angeles’ interests.

SCAG, like many metropolitan planning organizations, was created during the 1960s and sanctioned by the state and federal governments as the distributing agency for state and federal planning grants. In addition, SCAG serves as the monitor for determining members’ conformity with regional transportation, housing and environmental policies.

Orange County has repeatedly clashed with SCAG over the agency’s issuance of city-by-city, county-by-county quotas for affordable housing units. SCAG has asserted that Orange County has dumped its fair-share burden for low-cost housing on Riverside and San Bernardino counties.

Orange County has long refused to pay SCAG membership dues, relenting only recently when the Board of Supervisors began worrying that SCAG would make transportation decisions adverse to Orange County.

If Orange County was part of a more compact, local planning group, it would stand a better chance of getting a larger, more proportionate share of federal transportation dollars now being “sucked up” by the Century Freeway and L.A.’s Metro Rail system, according to Stan Oftelie, chief executive officer of the Orange County Transportation Authority.

Word of Bradley’s role in lobbying against the amendment was made public by McConnell, lobbyist for both the county and OCTA. He alarmed OCTA officials at their public meeting on Monday morning when he said Bradley had accused Orange County officials of being racially motivated in wanting to secede from SCAG.

McConnell said Bradley told Mineta that Orange County’s amendment was a “racist, white-flight attempt to avoid responsibility for rebuilding” South Los Angeles after the recent riots.

“No agreement can be reached when the race card has been played,” McConnell told OCTA board members.

McConnell said his source was Rep. Ron Packard (R-Oceanside), a high-ranking GOP member of the committee who represents a portion of Orange County. And Packard, he said, had heard Bradley’s comments through Mineta.

Both Mineta and Bradley said later Monday that McConnell’s version of their conversation is completely wrong. Packard could not be reached for comment.

But earlier Monday, McConnell’s account of the conversation had incensed OCTA officials, who vowed to fire off letters to both Bradley and Mineta.

“Mr. Bradley has a full plate right now,” said OCTA Chairman Gary L. Hausdorfer, a San Juan Capistrano councilman. “He ought not to be challenging Orange County’s autonomy” on an issue that concerns Orange County transportation funds and is “not about L.A.”

OCTA board member William D. Mahoney, a La Habra councilman, said it is important for Mineta and others to realize that Orange County’s efforts to reform SCAG and possibly form a new metropolitan planning organization “predate the riots.”

And McConnell, OCTA’s lobbyist, added that the ongoing legislative efforts were aimed more at clearing up the “incompetence of the leadership” at SCAG.

Mineta’s aide Federing said Orange County’s “view is 10 years old and is well known among transportation officials. It’s nothing new.”

At issue is whether creation of a new metropolitan planning organization requires the consent of members representing 75% of the population included in an existing organization. The Federal Highway Administration and SCAG are insisting that such is the case, which gives Los Angeles virtual veto power over Orange County’s secession attempts.

Orange County officials want to be able to form an alternative metropolitan planning organization if 25% of members want to form a new group and the governor consents.

SCAG has 200 members, all from city councils and boards of supervisors. It covers a population of 15 million people and has jurisdiction over 38,000 square miles beginning in Ventura and extending south and east to the Mexican, Arizona and Nevada borders.

Orange County officials argue that SCAG is too large and cite other states with smaller metropolitan planning organizations. They point to Texas, which has 16 million people and 32 separate metropolitan planning organizations, and to Pennsylvania, which has 12 million people and 20 such organizations.