Supervisors and Role of the CEO

Your Dec. 28 editorial, “Running the County,” mentioned how a 30-person commission determined that the “Board of Supervisors should set policy and let a strong CEO carry it out.”

While I agree that a strong CEO is necessary for effective county government, I’m in complete disagreement with the final part of your editorial that said, “The supervisors have staffs large enough to keep them apprised of what is going on in the county. They shouldn’t be micro-managing, but they should be supervising.”

Your statement is contradictory, in that managing and supervising sometimes utilize the same skills and administrative techniques.

I also feel that your statement is somewhat critical of the large staffs of the Board of Supervisors. I believe that the board staff and the CEO’s staff should work closely and in harmony in order to effectively run the county.

I believe that elected officials, board members, should be fully up to date on all phases of the county government. On important issues, the CEO should get all the facts, make recommendations, and then let the elected officials make the decision.

To let the board and CEO operate in separate directions would be irresponsible and counterproductive to good county government.

WILLIAM DE LA GARZA

Westminster

* Board Chairman William Steiner has a right to be proud, both of the success of the county in recovering from the bankruptcy and for his leadership in revitalizing and directing the Board of Supervisors (Orange County Voices, Dec. 28).

The Government Practices Oversight Committee’s primary complaint with the board is that it did not hold the CEO’s office accountable to timely respond to the committee’s findings and recommendations.

As the board well knows, it directed the CEO to respond to the board within three months of the issuance of the report. The CEO did not report back in any manner until 14 months after the committee’s report was submitted to the board.

Despite the board’s lack of appreciation of our criticism for lack of timeliness, the board has a very good record of adopting oversight committee recommendations at such times as the CEO chooses to bring specific recommendations to the board for a vote.

We commend the board for its continued support of the oversight committee’s recommendations.

MARY ANN SCHULTE, Chair

WILLIAM R. MITCHELL,

Vice-Chair, Government

Practices Oversight Committee

* Steiner’s assessment in regard to county reform speaks positively of the county’s chief executive officer, Jan Mittermeier: “ . . . she has replaced a previously dysfunctional structure in which five county supervisors could do their own thing.”

The comment is troubling, especially in light of Mittermeier’s stranglehold over public information relative to the proposed airport.

The nonelected position of CEO eclipses the board’s accountability to the public for decisions, good and bad, and short-circuits the direct representation process. This is terrible public policy and poses problems different from, though often more severe than, those encountered in the past.

For instance, while the board has discretion over land use approvals, the last two major environmental reports for the airport and jail were found inadequate.

Moreover, members of the public have filed lawsuits against the county over other environmental reports which the courts found deficient. So what’s with the county’s Planning and Development Services Department? Is there a management problem? How can it be fixed?

Most certainly there is a problem. And the board can’t fix it. Only the CEO has authority over personnel movement in this very important county division, though the board must rely on this division’s frequently inept data and documentation in making land use decisions.

In short, the CEO’s office is a public policy black hole.

What’s the point of electing board members if their hands are tied or, as Steiner suggests, they can no longer “do their own thing”?

I should be able to decide, at the ballot box, whether my supervisor’s “own thing” is desirable or not. Currently, this basic right is inappropriately interrupted.

This has more the feel of a police state than a representative democracy.

SHERRY LEE MEDDICK

Silverado