Orange County Bankruptcy

Re “Orange County Files for Bankruptcy,” Dec. 7:

The “surprise” bankruptcy of Orange County should go down as another “day of infamy” as our Board of Supervisors slept.

One should not be surprised that supervisors such as Thomas Riley and Harriett Wieder did not heed or understand the implications of the warnings sounded earlier this year. After all, these are the same supervisors who wasted $300 million on an inadequate, noisy airport rather than investing this money for an intercontinental airport that both Orange and San Diego counties need and that could have been located at the border between the two without seriously impacting existing communities.

The bankruptcy they have presided over is not just financial. Our spirit is impoverished daily as our once-beautiful county is ground down by toll roads through environmentally sensitive and scenic spaces we once enjoyed so much, whole city areas become too dangerous to drive through, let alone walk through, and our health and education services are diminished by the massive onslaught of demanding legal and illegal immigrants and their Third World cultures. And our supervisors sleep.

They should resign. But they won’t. Voters, wake up. Turn them out. Orange County needs change too, and if bankruptcy is not the wake-up call we needed, then nothing is.

THOMAS KAPORCH

Newport Beach

So much can be said about this financial tragedy, but state Sen. Marian Bergeson (R-Newport Beach) said it the best with her quote, “It’s a shocking occurrence. We’re going to have to look to Sacramento, to Washington and obviously to ourselves.”

So much for the Republican cry for smaller government. Maybe now the citizens of this conservative bastion will appreciate how government can assist those in need. Or will they pay for their own bailout by themselves, without taxpayers’ money from anywhere else?

It will be interesting to watch.

BARRY GREENFIELD

West Hollywood

Twenty-twenty hindsight is remarkably clear. With it any damn fool can realize that Robert L. Citron made a mistake in September, 1993, when he told the Board of Supervisors that interest rates should not rise for three years.

It should have been apparent to any damn fool that the combination of the Reagan deficit and the Clinton economic expansion would create a situation where interest rates would have to rise. However, none of the members of the Board of Supervisors who received Citron’s erroneous report made any objection. All they said was, “Bob, that’s very interesting. Keep up the good work.”

If blame is to be assessed for this unfortunate situation, it should be spread about evenly.

FREDERICK T. MASON

Santa Ana

Most politicians and government officials don’t do much and don’t harm too much. Citron, the ex-treasurer, ex-tax collector, did something, and we have a $1.5-billion loss.

STEVE LAU

Huntington Beach

Lemon County!

HOWARD B. SCHIFFER

Santa Barbara