O.C. Bankruptcy Panels Foundering, Some Say : Crisis: Members of three blue-ribbon committees complain of a lack of direction and staff support.

Three blue-ribbon committees established by the Board of Supervisors to help lead Orange County out of bankruptcy are mired in dissension, leading some members to question the effectiveness of the panels.

The Audit Oversight Committee, the Privatization Task Force and the Treasury Oversight Committee were created in the weeks following the county’s Dec. 6 bankruptcy filing as a way of bringing together government leaders, business representatives and activists to hammer out solutions to the financial crisis.

But critics contend that the committees are understaffed and have so far contributed little to the recovery effort. Some even suggest that they might have been ill-conceived from the beginning.

“Whenever you assign blue-ribbon committees, it’s a great way to remove accountability from the elected officials,” said Bruce Whitaker, an anti-tax activist and member of the audit committee. “It provides political cover. . . . It’s window dressing.”

County supervisors conceded that they have concerns about the effectiveness of the committees. But they maintained that the panels still might be able to play a constructive role in recovery efforts.

“They were formed with good intention, but they are floundering a little bit,” said Supervisor William G. Steiner. “They desperately need good staff support out of the CEO’s office, and that’s been difficult with all the new faces and staff changes that have occurred since the bankruptcy.”

Still, Steiner said, the committees should not be disbanded.

“They’re legitimate,” he said. “I think their needs are going to be addressed because the committees’ work is too important to have them collapse.”

Supervisor Roger R. Stanton agreed, adding: “These organizations, to varying degrees, are useful and have a lot to offer.”

However, Supervisor Marian Bergeson said that county officials should take another look at whether the county needs each of the committees.

“I think they need to be evaluated in terms of worth and effectiveness. Nobody wants to sit around wasting their time,” she said.

Frustration over the committees’ status boiled over last week when some members publicly questioned whether they were serving a useful purpose.

During a meeting Thursday, members of the Privatization Task Force complained that the Board of Supervisors voted to evaluate a privatization plan for the Environmental Management Agency without first seeking the task force’s input.

Task force member Mark Gaughan said the vote was like “a rock dropping onto these efforts here.”

Another member, Lucy Dunn, asked whether the task force was “wasting time. . . . I’m troubled. If the board is going to continue in this direction, I’d like to know.”

Those sentiments were echoed at Wednesday’s Treasury Oversight Committee, where two members recently resigned, one because of a conflict of interest, the other because of the time demands.

The departures are compounded, panelists said, by a lack of county staff support.

“I don’t get the feeling people really care about us in the county,” Jeffery M. Thomas, chairman of the treasury committee, said. “We can’t operate like this, but I’m determined not to let this committee fail.”

Thomas said he plans to ask the Board of Supervisors to provide the committee with some staff support.

“We’re trying to do all this work, but we have no help,” Thomas said. “We need to find out what they expect this committee to do. We need to see what their expectations are and how they compare to our expectations of what we should do.”

At the Audit Oversight Committee, which was charged with making a comprehensive analysis on ways to overhaul county government, some panelists said county staffers are actually exerting too much influence.

“Part of the problem is that the staff wants to control everything,” said Bill Fogarty, executive secretary-treasurer of the Orange County Central Labor Council and a member of the audit committee. “There are people on the committee who think we can actually raise issues and do something for the county. . . . But I think (the county) wants a rubber stamp.”

Fogarty and Whitaker complained that the audit committee is stacked with “government insiders” who aren’t interested in pursuing radical reforms.

But audit committee member Bill Mitchell, chairman of Orange County Common Cause, said it is too early to write off the committee, which is now selecting a firm to conduct an independent county audit.

“I will not be able to determine if this is an unfruitful process until such time as the committee makes recommendations based on the completion of the audit, and the county does not implement it,” Mitchell said. “We are probably five months away from” finalizing recommendations.

County supervisors vowed to do what they can to provide the committees with more resources.

“There’s no question you have to have the resources,” Bergeson said. “The problem is very real.”

But Stanton said there are limits to what the county can give the committees. “I’ve got the same gripes right now,” he said. “But there is not much we can do about it at this point.”

Board of Supervisors Chairman Gaddi H. Vasquez said he was “very concerned” about complaints that the Privatization Task Force was being left out of the decision-making process.

“I want them to be included and consulted in the process,” he said.