Bills to Help County Recover From Bankruptcy Face Vote

In what could be a critical week for Orange County’s efforts to recover from bankruptcy, more than half a dozen bills are expected to face their final legislative test in a sharply divided Assembly.

An Assembly select committee that has been looking into the bankruptcy is slated to debate several bills today, with the full package going to the floor Thursday.

But first, a pair of crucial measures authored by Sen. William A. Craven (R-Oceanside), including a bill to help the county raise additional revenue by accepting trash from other regions, must clear the Senate.

The trash bill, which would allow Orange County to skip the usual environmental reviews needed before it begins importing garbage, goes before the Natural Resources Committee today. While the Democrat-dominated committee might normally be expected to torpedo the measure, Craven is optimistic the panel will prove amenable to letting Orange County off the hook given its grim financial predicament.

Craven’s other bill, which includes provisions giving bulletproof protection to $236 million in recovery notes the county is offering to participants in its fallen investment pool, got out of the Senate Appropriations Committee on Monday. The measure would also help assuage Wall Street concerns by ensuring that the state tap motor vehicle license fees intended for Orange County to pay off recovery loans.

But even in victory, the measure was hit by a few arrows during the committee hearing. Sen. Patrick Johnston (D-Stockton), committee chairman, noted that vehicle license fees normally intended to fuel county programs would go instead to pay for the bankruptcy.

“You’re committing revenue for the long term to pay off today’s debts,” he said, adding that the county could “run the risk of insolvency or at least poverty.”

Craven responded by calling the bill the “cornerstone” of the county’s recovery efforts and suggesting it represented “the best we could come up with.”

Both bills are expected to go to the Senate floor Thursday, then immediately be transmitted to the Assembly, where they’ll join half a dozen others ready for consideration. Among them are a measure to speed the sale of county assets and another that would allow Orange County to more effectively tap into fines and interest it is owed on delinquent property taxes.

The Senate Appropriations Committee also approved a measure by Assemblywoman Doris Allen (R-Cypress) that would allow schools to mortgage their property and use the proceeds for operating costs, a practice prohibited in California. The bill now goes to the Senate floor for debate.

While many Assembly Democrats have taken delight in battering the Republican bastion of Orange County after the bankruptcy, insiders speculate that as the 11th hour nears, odds increase that the county’s package might be able to slide through.