Bill Would Let Voters Cut Orange County Board’s Role

A state senator plans to introduce legislation Monday that would allow voters in financially strapped Orange County to strip the Board of Supervisors of all fiscal authority and turn budgetary matters over to a group of trustees.

Sen. Lucy Killea (I-San Diego) said Friday that she was motivated to draft the measure because supervisors have failed to aggressively tackle the ballooning crisis since the county investment portfolio collapsed and forced the county to declare bankruptcy in early December.

“They did not exercise their authority, they did not provide oversight of their investments, and now they’ve been at it three months without taking any decisive action,” Killea said. “They certainly lack the support of the public and the investment community. I don’t think we should be saying, ‘Here, go solve the problems,’ when they’re the cause of the problem.”

Killea’s bill would set up an election June 6 to allow Orange County voters to take away the supervisors’ financial responsibilities and establish a County Assistance Authority to deal with the crisis. The authority, which Killea said could have a life span of several years, would be run by state Treasurer Matt Fong, two members appointed by the governor and three Orange County representatives drawn from the cities, the schools and the Board of Supervisors.

Among the powers of the authority would be the ability to call for a tax increase. In addition, the bill makes provisions for state loans to immediately help bail out the county, which has more than $1 billion in bond debt due this summer.

The supervisors, meanwhile, would be left with very few responsibilities, Killea conceded.

“It’s not a recall,” she said. “Rather, the board would be put on probation, if you will. It would essentially be saying they’re not equipped to handle this problem given their performance to date.”

The proposal was attacked by Orange County officials, who suggested that it was only a recipe for further troubles.

“I think it’s entirely inappropriate and not needed,” said Supervisor Marian Bergeson, a former state senator. “The county is going forward and has excellent advisers and resources” to manage the recovery.

Bergeson said the recent addition of county Chief Executive Officer William J. Popejoy has further strengthened the county’s ability to pull out of the bankruptcy. Popejoy, she said, has provided good information and research to the board so it can “make the tough decisions.”

Popejoy said he was unaware of the bill and was too preoccupied with the tasks at hand to be concerned about the implications of a trusteeship.

“I don’t have a position one way or the other,” he said. “I’m busy doing the job that the board has given me.”

Killea’s legislation closely mirrors a proposal made a week ago by Assembly Speaker Willie Brown, who suggested that Orange County needed to consider raising taxes to bail itself out and that the state should consider establishing a trusteeship to run the beleaguered county.

Brown could not be reached for comment Friday, but Capitol insiders predicted that the Killea bill might prove palatable to Democrats and would serve at the very least to prod Orange County leaders into producing concrete proposals to pull the county away from the financial brink.