ORANGE COUNTY IN BANKRUPTCY : Brown Renews Attack on County Leaders

Assembly Speaker Willie Brown continued his assault Tuesday on Republican-backed efforts to help Orange County and declared that elected leaders in the county have failed miserably and ought to resign.

“I wouldn’t entrust responsibility for managing to anybody in Orange County, let alone those people elected,” Brown said. “They have done just a terrible job. If you’re talking about public officials who ought to resign, that whole collection ought to affix their names to a joint resignation.”

Brown said a raft of bills Orange County’s delegation plans to introduce when the Legislature convenes a special session Friday on the bankruptcy face certain defeat.

In particular, said the longtime Democratic Assembly leader, who attacked the county’s recovery plans twice last week, proposals to relieve Orange County of certain costly state mandates and to allow local governments to contract out some services have “no chance” of passage.

“The whole business of privatization, that’s really out to lunch,” Brown said, suggesting that in most cases contracting out services normally handled by public employees produces “a hell of a lot more costs” and reduces service.

“My guess is that had Orange County and its executives not been engaged in private entrepreneurship they wouldn’t be in the trouble they’re in,” Brown quipped.

“Gambling is gambling . . . (and) you’re not to gamble with public dollars,” Brown added. “They didn’t start out with that idea. They started out with the idea: How much can we earn?”

Brown did say the Legislature had a role to play, but suggested it should be limited to rewriting the laws that “encouraged some of the antics of that county” and possibly approving a measure that would allow the state to guarantee bailout loans.