Bankruptcy Offers Lessons, but What of Solutions?

* I have the utmost sympathy for the innocent county employees who will suffer because of the blunders and incompetence of their leaders.

A reduction of 8.9% of the work force is a hard pill to swallow, but it is routine in the private sector.

After getting over the initial trauma of a layoff, private sector companies consolidate, economize and become leaner and more efficient. The results are usually positive. The laid-off employees find other jobs and often improve their status.

Private sector companies always get rid of the “deadwood” first. These are the lazy employees with bad attitudes who are not performing. The younger, qualified employees are usually retained to build for the future. It is unfortunate that organized labor wants the county to retain deadwood. I hope they come to their senses and allow the county to use performance reviews as one criteria for establishing layoff lists.

BILL MELLO

Huntington Beach

Committees of Correspondence

* The recommendations I’ve heard thus far to bail Orange County out of bankruptcy would compound wrongs. If workers are excess, they should be laid off regrettably, if real estate is of no value to the county the holdings should be sold, if welfare programs are ineffective they should be erased and so should school programs, or any other kind of county government function; but not to bail us out of bankruptcy. Bailout and these strategies should be distinct and separate issues.

(County Chief Executive Officer William J.) Popejoy doesn’t need to make a lot of tough choices; he needs to make only one, and that is to assess all of us citizens of Orange County, private and business, in accordance with our ability to pay, an amount to cover the county’s indebtedness.

We also need to be shown that steps have been taken to assure us there is no way this could happen again.

Lastly, the perpetrators of this debacle must be prosecuted.

JAMES C. WOOLDRIDGE

San Clemente

* The county’s fiscal crisis has taught us many valuable lessons. I hope someone is taking notes.

First, the management structure was set up for failure. No one was in charge. This appears to now be recognized with the new interim CEO being given the authority to actually manage. It is difficult to place a great deal of blame on the former CAO when he was denied that authority.

I hope the Board of Supervisors has learned this lesson well and will concentrate on policy and oversight issues and let professional managers conduct the daily business and operation of the county government.

Another lesson to be learned centers around the effective use of staff. It is understood that each supervisor cannot be expected to know everything personally about what is going on. However, each office has a number of executive assistants who have specific areas of responsibilities. One might ask, “Who had the financial area of responsibility and what did they do?” If those assistants are not effectively performing their jobs, this might yet be another area for cost savings.

A key for any successful organization is the type of operating environment that is created by top management. It is no secret that the environment that has been created by the actions of the supervisors has not been one that results in a high level of trust. When there is no trust there is no communication.

When there is an atmosphere of finger pointing, kill the messenger, the hidden agenda and let them get out in front so I can shoot them down; you cannot expect to get at the truth. If there was an environment of working together in trust within the county government, this financial problem could have been discussed openly and corrective actions taken to prevent the eventual disaster that took place.

I hope the supervisors have learned this lesson well and will take the necessary steps to create this environment of trust. We must take advantage of this experience and let it point us to the right path for recovery.

JAMES P. REICHERT

Villa Park

James P. Reichert is a retired general manager of the Orange County Transit District. * Regarding the financial debacle in Orange County: How terrible could a half-cent sales tax increase be? Worse than laying off all of these people? Worse than killing the libraries? Worse than eliminating critical fire, police and sanitary services? Is this the Orange County contract with America? Better to destroy the place, but never raise taxes? Give me a break. Do we honestly think that if taxes are not raised, we won’t still pay for it in other ways? The ripple effect alone from the reduced buying power will impact everyone in the county.

If this would solve the problem, raise the sales tax, please!

CASSANDRA S. DUBOURDIEU

Fountain Valley

* I appreciate that it is necessary to pare down county government, but I am concerned that some of the programs and departments that are being cut and disbanded may be some of those that are best suited to bring new money and business to the county at a time when it is needed the most. For example, the laying-off of the entire county unit that was engaged in preparing and submitting to the federal government a county plan for defense conversion may possibly have killed the county’s chances of securing several million dollars of new funds to help small businesses recover from the Defense Department reductions (base closures, loss of defense contracts, etc.).

As one of a half-dozen “volunteers” who has spent many hours serving on the county’s Defense Conversion Committee, I would hate to see our efforts to have been in vain. The long-term net result of a successful application to the (federal government) will be the retraining of laid-off defense workers, the stimulation of new business and even the attraction of new business to the county at a time when it is needed most.

For example, all the efforts of the business and educational sector volunteers to come up with a defense conversion program for the county can be salvaged (and even revitalized) by turning the process over to the business and educational sectors themselves.

MICHAEL W. BERNS

Director

Beckman Laser Institute and

Medical Institute

UC Irvine

* The recent quote from Supervisor Jim Silva (about not communicating a lot with other supervisors) summarizes in a nutshell a great deal of what is wrong with the way in which Orange County has been managed for many years. If our supervisors are too arrogant to “waste” time communicating with one another on the major issues, I say get them all out! Let’s elect some representative whose top and only priority is a well-managed county government.

GRETCHEN LAMBERT

Fullerton

* Supervisor Jim Silva’s run-in with CEO William Popejoy is an inevitable result of the board’s ridiculous mandate that the fiscal gravity of the county’s predicament be resolved without increasing taxes.

The supervisors appear to be totally out of touch with the desires and needs of their respective constituencies. Much of the citizenry is agreeable to paying a tax to assist the county in bailing itself out of this mess, but the board is more concerned with trying to save its political hide rather than doing what is right. The irony is that Popejoy’s board-approved plan to severely scale back government services (via massive layoffs) will impose a tax increase anyway, a very insidious one, because the taxpayers will be getting far less in the future for the same amount of dollars.

MARCIA GOODMAN

Huntington Beach