ORANGE : Appointive-Treasurer Issue Comes Up Again

Voters may be asked for a third time to make the city treasurer’s office appointive rather than elective.

Mayor Joanne Coontz has regularly brought the issue up since similar measures went down in defeat in 1990 and 1992.

The idea was revived Tuesday by securities attorney Michael B. Jeffers, who has been advising the council on investment policy.

Coontz and Jeffers failed to move the other council members to immediate action on the issue, but the board agreed to reconsider the issue after the city manager analyses the costs of holding a referendum.

A report by Jeffers on the bankruptcy noted that $28 million of the city’s money in the county investment pool would not have been there if the city treasurer had followed policy and withdrawn automatic deposits of property taxes.

However, a serious illness prevented Treasurer Mark Weiss, who resigned in October, from fulfilling his duties, the report said.

The council had no means of supervising the treasurer’s office because it is an elected post, he added.

“Under the present system, the city has no control over the qualifications of the treasurer,” Jeffers said, adding that an appointed post would be preferable because the treasurer would be accountable to the City Council.

Voters have twice disagreed, the last time voting the measure down by more than 4,000 votes. But Coontz argued that residents may be more receptive to the idea after the county bankruptcy.

“I think we owe it to the people of Orange, knowing there is a problem with an elected treasurer, to bring this before the council,” she said.