ORANGE COUNTY IN BANKRUPTCY : EDITORIAL COMMENTARY ACROSS THE NATION

The nation’s newspapers have had plenty to say about Orange County’s plight.

With his Navajo jewelry and down-home ways, he was the people’s tax collector, Robert L. “Bob” Citron. Image mattered: Over 24 years in Orange County, California, he rarely let a criticism of his operation go without a blustery answer. Now Mr. Citron, who in 1973 became treasurer as well as taxman, is the silenced symbol of a colossal overreach in municipal finance.

WALL STREET JOURNAL, DEC. 9

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Despite all the John Birch Society sound bites, no one among locally elected officials (in Orange County) seems to have kept an eye on the former county treasurer, Robert Citron . . . His free and easy ways with other people’s money came to light as a bitter pre-Christmas surprise for 180 of Orange County’s local government entities whose funds had been entrusted to a single investment portfolio managed--or, rather, mismanaged--by Citron.

SAN DIEGO UNION-TRIBUNE, DEC. 13

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What Orange County needed was oversight. Mr. Citron was seemingly left to run amok. Arthur Levitt, chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission, calls on state and local governments to monitor investment managers of taxpayer money . . . If fund managers were forced to assess and report risks, and government supervisors were responsible for overseeing the managers, then Orange County--one of the wealthiest in America--would not now be threatening to lay off teachers and nurses.

NEW YORK TIMES, DEC. 15

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There will be plenty of time later to lay blame for the investment speculation that has now forced Orange County to file for bankruptcy protection. But what’s critical now is swift leadership from the state to contain the crisis. The immediate problem is to shore up Orange County’s investment fund and provide liquidity for the agencies that have invested, to keep them from tumbling like dominoes into bankruptcy themselves.

SACRAMENTO BEE, DEC. 9