Central : ORANGE : Shake-Up, if OKd, Would Cost 3 Jobs

Three of the city’s economic specialists will lose their jobs today if, as expected, the City Council approves a shake-up of redevelopment offices.

The job cuts will save the city $250,000 in salaries and benefits and be a step in fulfilling the city manager’s goal of creating a “leaner and smaller” government.

“I have a philosophy to try to do more with less,” City Manager David F. Dixon said.

The plan calls for the nine-member redevelopment division--now part of the Planning Department--to dissolve. The new Economic Development Department will take its place with a staff of six and expand its focus beyond redevelopment projects.

David K. McElroy, the head of the new department, said his recruitment earlier this month signaled the changes at City Hall.

“It really is a philosophical change,” McElroy said. “Redevelopment is eliminating slums and blight. Economic development is more along the lines of retaining and attracting jobs.”

Dixon said he has envisioned that change since coming to Orange last February. “When I first came, I had had a different perspective to not just look at redevelopment,” he said. “I thought economic development should be citywide.”

Dixon added that the mission he was hired to accomplish is three-fold: recruit new job-creating industries, retain current businesses and nurture an expansion of both.

The city went through a major overhaul early in 1993, when more than 100 jobs were eliminated through attrition or layoffs in all departments--except police and fire.

“Our position on the council is that we support the city manager and his ongoing restructuring efforts, even though there are some sad occasions when employees have to depart,” Councilman Mike Spurgeon said. “We’re doing everything we can to assist those people.”

The council will vote on the matter during its 4:30 p.m. session in City Hall at 300 E. Chapman Ave.