Popejoy’s Tempest Becomes a Tangent : County CEO’s Ill-Timed Attack on Stanton Only Detracts From Recovery Efforts

For months, County Chief Executive Officer William J. Popejoy has artfully steered the county through the storms of bankruptcy, crafting a painful recovery plan and taking plenty of heat to do the right thing. He deserves a lot of credit for what in many ways has been a thankless job.

Last week, however, with just days to go until the vote this Tuesday on the sales tax ballot measure for bankruptcy recovery, Measure R, Popejoy seemed to spin out of orbit. His attack on Supervisor Roger R. Stanton in a dispute related to the county’s lawsuit against Merrill Lynch & Co. was ill-considered and, given the urgency of staying focused, ill-timed.

Popejoy asked the Orange County Grand Jury to investigate Stanton and remove him from office for publicly suggesting a possible settlement amount in the county’s $2.4 billion lawsuit against the firm that the county blames for its fiscal troubles. The argument, according to Popejoy, was that Stanton’s figure of $500 million was well below the county’s expectations of $1.2 billion, and therefore compromised the lawsuit and undermined the credibility of county negotiators.

This tempest in a teapot should be dropped. In going to the mat over a relatively small matter, Popejoy risked jeopardizing the larger good work he already has done. One of the great assets of the Popejoy approach to this point has been its fair-minded toughness.

There is plenty to complain about as far as Stanton’s performance during the bankruptcy is concerned. He has held his finger to the wind, avoided tough decisions and demanded that others come up with a plan of recovery more suitable to him. Late in the game, he came out against Measure R and offered a disingenuous “alternative.”

Stanton’s unwillingness to educate people about the stigma of bankruptcy and the need for orderly if painful recovery stands as one of the great failures of leadership in this serious financial crisis. His opposition to the tax, coupled with his status as one of the presiding supervisors responsible for bankruptcy, ought to be understood by angry citizens as a powerful reason to vote in favor of Measure R on Tuesday.

The complaint by Popejoy only served those looking for ways to criticize the recovery team. The county must stay on course in these days before the voting.