County Contingent Heads for Capitol Seeking Rescue : Crisis: Group of elected officials and business leaders plans to accept Willie Brown’s offer of chance to address the Assembly. Meetings with Wilson, Fong also sought.

Delayed by a day, Orange County leaders plan to jet to the state Capitol this afternoon to confer with lawmakers about the deepening financial crisis before pleading their case to the Assembly on Wednesday.

County leaders were invited by Assembly Speaker Willie Brown to address the Legislature’s lower house on Monday but had to postpone an appearance because of scheduling conflicts among the elected officials and business leaders who wanted to attend.

Supervisor Marian Bergeson said the contingent hopes to meet today with Gov. Pete Wilson and possibly Treasurer Matt Fong before addressing the Assembly the next day. In addition, county leaders are also expected to return to the Capitol on March 20 to address the state Senate.

“The state has to understand the clear urgency of this situation,” Bergeson said. “If this crisis is not addressed, the whole state will suffer an immediate impact.”

Brown met with Bergeson, Chief Executive Officer William J. Popejoy, Sheriff Brad Gates and representatives of the Orange County Business Council over the weekend in Newport Beach and came away convinced the entire Assembly needed to hear the presentation.

“It was a very good briefing,” Brown said of his meeting Saturday at the home of Irvine Co. executive Gary Hunt. “It should be shared with this membership (of the Assembly). I offered to give them the opportunity and that offer still stands.”

Among those expected to make the trip are Bergeson, Popejoy, Hunt and possibly other members of the business council, which played a pivotal role in setting up the meeting with Brown.

In fact, county insiders said board Chairman Gaddi H. Vasquez and several other supervisors were miffed that they were not included in the meeting with Brown or on preliminary lists of those scheduled to travel to Sacramento. Except for Bergeson, no other supervisor was notified about Saturday’s meeting, raising concerns among some of the elected leaders about the growing influence of the business council.

Vasquez said Monday that he wished he had been apprised of the weekend meeting before it took place. He said he spoke with Bergeson, who is the board’s legislative liaison, and was told that the meeting was pulled together at the last minute.

Vasquez said he wants the board to “work to enhance our communication so that in the future there will be advisories given on those kinds of things.”

Asked if he was concerned that the business council was orchestrating recovery efforts without board input, Vasquez declined to comment. However, he said he does “welcome the assistance” of people who want to help with the county’s financial recovery.

Meanwhile, Brown said he was impressed by the presentation of the business and elected leaders and told the Assembly on Monday that it would do all well to hear it.

“All of us who have a responsibility and a sense of duty, regardless of our public posturing with reference to Orange County, must be prepared to deal with every aspect of the Orange County” crisis, Brown said, noting how lawmakers have weighed in with help after fires, floods and earthquakes.

Brown called what he heard over the weekend logical, rational and reasonable. The speediest way for all to hear it would be a presentation by the Orange County contingent to the Assembly, he said.

“In order to avoid those private meetings in plush homes, as was the case on Saturday, I want to do it here on the floor and I want to do it in a non-combative situation--period,” Brown added. “And that’s what I’m going to do.”

Although he seemed ready and willing to jump in and help Orange County, Brown continued to press for the supervisors to resign and for the appointment of a state-selected trustee to oversee the county’s recovery efforts. He also suggested that Orange County has to “exhaust all its potential resources” before the state should step in, a bow to the position of many Democrats that the county will need to raise taxes to solve its fiscal dilemma.

In addition, Brown noted that one Democrat lawmaker had raised the possibility of the state creating a new “debt authority” to buy bonds from Orange County. Another lawmaker, he said, “suggested to me this would be a golden opportunity to revisit Proposition 13,” the 1978 ballot measure that capped property tax rates.