Wieder Will Be Appointed to Federal Advisory Agency

Former Orange County Supervisor Harriett M. Wieder will be appointed by President Clinton to a federal agency that recommends ways to make government more efficient and less costly, the White House announced Wednesday.

Wieder will serve on a 10-member board that is the governing body of the Council of the Administrative Conference of the United States.

“I’m really excited about it,” she said Wednesday.

Wieder, 74, was completing her fourth and final term in office when Orange County became the largest municipality to declare bankruptcy in U.S. history. Wieder said Wednesday that the bankruptcy prevented her from being appointed to the Federal Housing Finance Board.

“When we crashed, it wasn’t appropriate for me to do that,” she said.

But Wieder, who has a 30-year career in local government, defended her record as a supervisor and said she had fought for years for reform in county government.

“The big problem in Orange County government is not the people, it’s the system,” she said. “It’s not easy to change the system. The only time change takes place is in a crisis situation.”

When the bankruptcy filing came on Dec. 6, Wieder and the four other supervisors then in office placed the blame squarely on the shoulders of Robert L. Citron, then treasurer-tax collector, whose risky investment strategies caused the county’s investment portfolio to collapse, costing the county $1.69 million.

“As far as my role and that debacle happening on my watch, I speak for myself, I don’t think I was irresponsible,” Wieder said. “To be accused of being irresponsible, you would have to know about something and not do something about it.”