LULAC Urges County Overhaul : Crisis: Latino group wants Board of Supervisors and Education Department dismantled, unincorporated areas annexed.

A sweeping restructuring of the county government, including dismantling of the Orange County Board of Supervisors, was proposed Friday by the Santa Ana Chapter of the League of United Latin American Citizens in a letter to the state Legislature.

Arturo Montez, chapter president, listed 22 recommendations in the letter to Senate Majority Leader Bill Lockyer (D-Hayward) and Assembly Speaker Willie Brown (D-San Francisco), encompassing the county’s executive branch as well as law enforcement and the judiciary.

“What we need right now is a restructuring of government,” Montez said. “Before you go back to the electorate and ask for more tax dollars, you have to have a structure that is sound and accountable to the electorate and not special-interest groups.”

The letter recommends that the Board of Supervisors be replaced by a nine-member, part-time commission appointed by the governor. It also recommends that all county boards and commissions currently in operation be suspended until cost-benefit analyses of them are conducted, and that the county Board of Education be dismantled and all state and federal education funds be transferred to school districts.

County schools Supt. John F. Dean said he does not want to “get in a nose-to-nose battle with LULAC or anyone else. But they do not understand that we are an extension of Sacramento and the local schools.”

If the Board of Education is dismantled, Dean asked, who will perform all its functions including teaching juvenile delinquent students and disabled children? The recommendations don’t “make any more sense than to say let Orange County disassociate itself from the state of California,” Dean said.

Other recommendations on the list include merging the Sheriff’s Department and the marshal’s office, restructuring the county grand jury, and separating the district attorney’s office funding from the control of the Board of Supervisors.

LULAC, a civil rights organization, also proposed the elimination of unincorporated areas by annexing them to local cities. This would, according to LULAC, eliminate the need for a county Planning Department and would reduce or eliminate the need for police and fire services currently provided by the county.

County supervisors could not be reached Friday for comments.