Moment of Clarity in a Confusing Time : Accountability and problem solving in Orange County crisis are separate matters

Sometimes it is difficult to separate the components of Orange County’s complicated bankruptcy. On the one hand, there is the problem and how it came to be. On the other, there is the effort to repair the damage.

But from time to time there is a moment of clarity--such as the indictment and arrest this week of former Assistant Treasurer Matthew Raabe on six felony counts related to alleged misappropriation of public funds and deception of participants in the county’s failed investment pool.

The image of Raabe being handcuffed brings the accountability aspect of the crisis into focus. For months, the public has been outraged over the way a host of public officials managed or oversaw the fund. Raabe’s arrest follows the April 27 guilty plea of his onetime boss, former Treasurer-Tax Collector Robert L. Citron, to six counts similar to those filed against Raabe.

There was a symbol in Raabe’s apprehension that seemed to point to the misadventures that sank the county’s financial ship. Investigators tailed him into a theater showing “Crimson Tide,” a movie about a second-in-command who defies a submarine captain. If only Raabe had led a shipboard rebellion as the treasurer’s office went so recklessly off course. As Orange County’s finances steamed toward the shoals, there was no righteous mutiny, at least not when it would have made a difference.

The arrests of Citron and now Raabe are reminders of the need for proper controls on an office that virtually was on its own, largely free of oversight from the County Board of Supervisors.

The post-mortems make clear that the question of responsibility for the disaster is a separate matter from the recovery effort, which is now the top priority. Frustration with Orange County’s collapse and the threat it poses to the state is understandable, but the problem and the solution should not be confused. Those responsible need to be brought to justice or replaced by the voters; separately, the county must plug its financial gaps. That means voters must produce the missing piece needed to fill a large hole in the recovery puzzle: the temporary half-cent sales tax that will be on the June 27 ballot.