ORANGE COUNTY IN BANKRUPTCY : Business Team Aims to Restore County’s Image : Strategy: Top leaders seek alliance to mend the area’s finances and standing. They oppose tax and user fee hikes.
Orange County business leaders who hustled this year to keep Taco Bell and other companies from leaving the region are assembling a high-powered team to help restore the county’s shattered finances and tarnished image.
“I don’t know if it’s a ‘red team’ or an ‘orange team’ or a crisis response team,” said H. Fred Mickelson, chairman of the Orange County Chamber of Commerce & Industry. “But we’re going to function as a single, clear voice for business in Orange County.”
Orange County’s business community, which has remained largely in the background as the county tumbled this month into history’s biggest municipal bankruptcy, presented a united front during a news conference Wednesday at the Center Club in Costa Mesa.
“The days of government being over here and business being over there are over,” said Loren C. Pannier, chief financial officer at CKE Restaurants in Anaheim and chairman of the Industrial League of Orange County, which will co-sponsor the business task force.
“We’re looking for a way to insert ourself into the process” of restoring the county’s health, Pannier said.
Some senior business executives said they have not sought active roles in containing the crisis up to now because the situation has been so fluid.
“You’ve got to find out what’s going on before you can help,” said William P. Foley II, president of Fidelity National Financial Inc. and chairman of CKE Restaurants, parent company of the Carl’s Jr. fast-food chain.
According to business observers, the task force’s success or failure will be determined by its ability to harness the county’s top corporate movers and shakers.
“In order for this to work, it’s got to be the power people in Orange County doing it,” said Dennis Aigner, dean of the School of Management at University of California, Irvine. “We’ve got to get business people to go inside (government offices) at least temporarily to see what can be done.”
The group was short on specifics--in large part, Pannier said, because the county is still struggling to get a grip on the crisis. “An attempt is being made to make (the crisis) more factual, less emotional, to calm it down,” he said.
Mickelson said county supervisors and state officials have endorsed the creation of a business-driven team that would function much like the “red teams” that government and business leaders have formed in recent years to keep disgruntled companies from leaving California.
Former state Treasurer Thomas W. Hayes, now a financial consultant to Orange County, said Wednesday that some members of the county’s business community, such as Irvine Co., have stepped forward to “offer encouragement and advice” but that none has offered any direct financial assistance.
The task force will incorporate “some of the best financial minds” in the county, Mickelson said. Taco Bell Corp. Chairman John Martin, Fluor Corp. Chairman Leslie G. McCraw and Rockwell International Corp. Chairman Donald R. Beall are expected to take active roles in the task force.
Plans are being made for an East Coast trip in the next two weeks to lobby Wall Street investment firms and Washington lawmakers. The message, Mickelson said, will be simple: “Business is bullish on Orange County. Business is not bankrupt. We are economically strong and vital.”
Business leaders also pledged to use their “resources and mental horsepower” to help elected officials as they tackle tough questions that are sure to surface as the 187 municipal governments, school districts and agencies participating in the county’s bankrupt investment fund struggle to balance their budgets.
Not surprisingly, the Orange County Chamber of Commerce & Industry and the Industrial League--which Wednesday announced plans to merge by spring--voiced unanimous opposition to any tax increases or higher user fees as solutions to the fiscal debacle.
“We don’t want to raise taxes,” Pannier said. “We’ve got to determine what can be done (to cut government expenses) before we start asking people for more and taking more money out of the economy.”
Times staff writers Don Lee and Matt Lait contributed to this report.
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