Give Wedaa, AQMD and Business a Break : * Conservative Critics Should Hold Fire on the Board’s Fair, Hard-Working Chairman

Orange County conservatives should give up their attack on Henry W. Wedaa, the hard-working chairman of the South Coast Air Quality Management District and Orange County cities’ representative to the AQMD board. Wedaa, who also is a member of the Yorba Linda City Council, has been a lightning rod for local criticism of the AQMD. Some small business owners, in particular, believe that emission regulations placed on their firms are putting an unfair financial burden on them. They have focused their anger on Wedaa.

Their latest efforts center on a bill by state Sen. John R. Lewis (R-Orange) that would change the rules for how the Orange County cities’ representative to the AQMD board is selected. Currently, it takes a two-thirds vote by all 31 cities to remove the cities’ representative, a majority that Wedaa’s opponents so far have been unable to muster despite several tries. Absent such a vote, Wedaa remains.

Lewis carried a similar measure to his current bill last year, but it died in the Assembly Natural Resources Committee. This year’s version passed on the Senate floor Thursday, and will probably be heard next in the same panel that dealt it its mortal blow a year ago. Since then, however, the committee’s membership has changed, making the bill’s chances hard to predict.

The AQMD is opposed to such a measure, maintaining that the so-called “super-majority” requirement helps maintain its commitment to clean air because members have a clear mandate to act on behalf of cities they represent. Wedaa, of course, also opposes it. Despite his obvious self-interest, he has a point when he says that the bill would lead to incessant turnover on the AQMD board. Wedaa, a Republican moderate, has been a hard-working and fair board chairman who has tried to make the AQMD more aware of the impact of regulations on businesses. He is not, he says, a “fresh-air fanatic”--his way of saying that air quality and job-producing businesses must be balanced. That’s the right idea.

Changing AQMD membership rules just to get rid of him is, by contrast, a bad idea.