ORANGE COUNTY IN BANKRUPTCY : House Less Than Packed for Hearing : Lawmakers: The panel probing Orange County’s fiscal woes drew well in Sacramento, but the Irvine turnout falls short.

After playing to packed houses in Sacramento on three previous occasions, a special Senate committee probing the Orange County bankruptcy drew only a modest crowd Friday to Irvine City Hall as lawmakers met in one of the cities hardest hit by the financial crisis.

Attorneys, financial experts and legislative aides, who sat scribbling notes onto yellow legal pads, made up most of the 100 attending the daylong hearing. Conspicuously absent, however, were community activists and ordinary citizens.

“I’m frankly disappointed,” said state Sen. John R. Lewis, (R-Orange), one of nine committee members hearing testimony. “I came early just to get a parking place, but I didn’t have to.”

The sparse attendance at Friday’s hearing stood in stark contrast to overflow crowds at the county’s Hall of Administration on two recent evenings, when residents blasted the Board of Supervisors.

Some activists blamed Friday’s low turnout on the combination of live television coverage, a light rain and a daytime meeting.

Even so, the low numbers angered those who showed up.

“This is really appalling,” said Irvine resident Craig Fletcher, 52, a former finance director for a small company that handled defense contracts. “I thought there would be all kinds of people here today. My wife advised me not to come, but I couldn’t stay away.”

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A few hours later after listening to testimony from county Chief Executive Officer William J. Popejoy and county bankruptcy attorney Bruce Bennett, Fletcher left in disgust.

“It’s beyond comprehension,” said Fletcher. “It’s beyond hypocrisy. It’s beyond outrageousness. It’s completely sickening.”

Speaker after speaker told the senators about the grim outfall from the county’s debacle.

“All this cutting, cutting, cutting,” said Barbara Chittenden, a 65-year-old San Juan Capistrano homemaker. “I want my libraries and schools. I don’t know. Maybe we should think about raising taxes.”

While the well-dressed Wall Street investors, the county’s confident recovery team and labor leaders took up most of the day’s lengthy testimony, it was Jean Forbath who got the biggest applause from the crowd.

Forbath, 65, who has worked in social services in Orange County for more than 25 years, said lawmakers were not giving the people of Orange County enough credit. She predicted that residents would agree to higher taxes if they knew the money would go to social services and not more of the high-risk investments known as derivatives.

“I know I’d be willing to give up $20 a month and going to a movie if I knew it was going to save an abused child,” she said. “They just assume we’re ready to let the quality of life deteriorate for all of us. All just to protect the relatively fat wallets we all have.”

Another resident told senators that the people of Orange County, not just the politicians, were to blame for the crisis.

“Down here it’s the good ol’ boys’ network,” said Dolores Otting, owner of a small business in Newport Beach. “What’s happened is that democracy has become the lazy man’s sport.”

Some observers complained that not enough new information emerged Friday.

“I’m angry,” said Madelene Arakelian, a Democrat seeking the 35th state Senate district seat that is up for grabs in a special election March 14. “I think the people are so discouraged listening to this. It’s just the same rhetoric, the same thing over and over again.”

Perhaps it was repetition that put one gentleman sitting in the back row to sleep shortly after lunch. His snoring elicited smiles from those sitting nearby. One of those was Irvine police Officer F. Anderson, posted at the hearing to provide security.

“Obviously, he’s not a county employee,” said Anderson, who didn’t wake the man.

Times staff writer Debora Vrana contributed to this report.