ORANGE COUNTY PERSPECTIVE : The Common Desire to Write ‘Done’

After months in the doldrums of bankruptcy, there is one sentiment that unites much of Orange County despite wide differences of opinion about how to climb out of the mess. That is the desire for closure.

The spotlight is very much on Sacramento, where the question of the week is whether a deal will get done. The political posturing of recent days was preceded by local approval of a consensus plan of recovery. There was the appearance of movement, and Moody’s Investors Service said last week that the key elements of the recovery plan “bode well for county bondholders.”

Still, politics have been in the air. Chances for passage seemed to improve as Gov. Pete Wilson said he would sign off if the plan stayed intact and Assembly Speaker Doris Allen seemed to retreat from a rival proposal.

Obviously, in view of the stakes for creditors and investors and for the county’s overall recovery, it would be good to have a plan on track. But it is also clear that a plan as constituted still would leave many issues for resolution. When the county decided against new taxation, it forfeited a clear route to recovery. Days of reckoning still lie ahead.

Among the many unanswered questions are what it will mean to have the seizure of more than $800 million in tax revenue from county agencies and the Orange County Transportation Authority. This is something the county really should know up front as it takes its medicine.

And there is the matter of linking reimbursement for those who lost money in the investment pool with successful litigation against investment brokers and auditors. Even as hopes were being pinned on that litigation, the Orange County Grand Jury concluded that the Board of Supervisors was largely to blame, and that “the foundations of this financial disaster were clearly built on ineffective management.” The question of whether those owed money will get stuck remains open.

The plan’s only new source of revenue, a two-tier system of new dumping fees for trash, is at best untested. It is unclear whether the plan of lower fees for distant haulers and increased fees for local haulers will work, or whether it might send locals out of the county themselves in search of lower fees.

Still, the week finds the county threading a needle. At this point, the burden clearly lies with those who stand in the way to show that they have a better and more politically feasible plan.