State Officials Say County’s Disaster Call Was Prudent : Relief: They defend Wilson’s decision to seek aid for quake-damaged scoreboard, noting county asked for it before extent of damage was clear.

State officials on Tuesday defended Gov. Pete Wilson’s decision to declare a state of emergency in Orange County, despite complaints that authorities stretched the disaster law to tap state and federal taxpayer money for earthquake repairs at Anaheim Stadium.

The powerful temblor did catastrophic damage in Los Angeles and Ventura counties last week, while just rattling homes and nerves throughout Orange County, where the only significant damage was to a 17-ton scoreboard at the city-owned stadium.

Kevin Eckery, a Wilson spokesman, said Administration officials “understand the sensitivity” of using taxpayer money to help finance more than $3 million in repairs at the stadium, but he said the governor was simply responding to a request from the city of Anaheim and Orange County for disaster relief.

“Our role was strictly administrative,” Eckery said. “Given the severe damage that we’ve seen in Los Angeles and Ventura counties, how prudent would it have been to hold off in Orange County, when indeed there could have been more damage that surfaced later?”

Wilson also requested that President Clinton include Orange County in the federal disaster declaration, making Anaheim and other cities in the county eligible to seek federal grants and other assistance in addition to the state relief funds.

Officials said the decision to include Orange County in the disaster declaration was made before state officials knew the extent of damage in Los Angeles, Ventura and Orange counties.

Orange County’s request for help was criticized by some residents and politicians, who argued that it is inappropriate to use taxpayer money to repair a scoreboard.

“It’s not only the wrong use of taxpayers’ money, but it’s an insult to those families in Los Angeles who lost their loved ones and their homes in a real catastrophe,” said Assemblyman Gil Ferguson (R-Newport Beach). “It cheapens their death and their property losses.”

Ferguson said there was nothing he or his colleagues in the Legislature could do to stop the governor’s declaration, but he expressed hope that public pressure would prompt Anaheim officials to look for other means to finance repairs to the Sony Jumbotron video scoreboard.

Such criticism has surprised Anaheim officials, who said they are trying to protect the taxpayers of their city, not minimize the severity of damage elsewhere. They agreed that those who need housing and transportation assistance should have priority.

Despite the request for state and federal relief, city officials have said they would prefer to recover the repair costs from any party that may be at fault for poorly erecting or securing the massive Jumbotron scoreboard.

According to city documents, Sony was responsible for securing the scoreboard at the stadium. Engineers said the existing structure for the scoreboard could not support a weight over 50,000 pounds. The Jumbotron weighs about 34,000 pounds.

Officials at the state Office of Emergency Services said the decision to include Orange County in the emergency declaration was made soon after the county requested aid early last week--and before the agency’s damage assessment teams could determine the quake’s full impact. The emergency declaration by the governor was not announced until Monday evening, more than a week after the earthquake, because of delays in completing paperwork needed to enact the law.

“You can’t on the basis of hindsight go back and say, ‘Oh, never mind,’ ” said Cindy Shamrock, the state Office of Emergency Services chief deputy director. “It was a done deal, and it was done at a time when we didn’t know the full extent of damage and we were faced with the possibility of greater damages than there turned out to be.”

Shamrock said that the toppled scoreboard represents a “huge disaster” for the city of Anaheim, which already faced an estimated $8-million budget deficit even before the earthquake.

“In events of this magnitude,” she said, “if there’s any evidence of damage, we will err on the side of granting a county’s request for help.”

As a municipally owned facility, the stadium will now be eligible for grants, just like a school or city hall damaged in the quake, Shamrock said. Such grants do not have to be repaid.

“The stadium certainly is a source of employment, it’s certainly a source of revenue I assume the local area needs,” Shamrock said. “Whether it should be considered the same thing as a school or city hall, I think you could ask 15 different people and get 15 different answers.”

Anaheim officials have estimated damage at the stadium at $3 million to $4 million. Because the city’s stadium insurance policy has a $6.5-million deductible, the city is potentially liable for those repairs. The collapse of the scoreboard caused part of the cantilever above the upper tier to cave in, damaging four giant advertising panels and damaging about 1,000 seats.