The Leadership Challenge

The county has the bankruptcy behind it and a new century stretching on the horizon. That ought to be a pretty good starting ground for any regional governmental entity whose Board of Supervisors is about to turn over two-fifths of its seats.

This sunny place always has been fueled by the optimism of its inhabitants, but now it would seem that a special excitement might be in the air. This is the region that led Southern California out of recession in this decade, and its high-tech economic engine promises to fuel healthy growth on into the early part of the new millennium.

And yet, with people so obviously looking forward to raising and educating their families here, and with businesses planning for the opportunities of the future, the county’s top governing board continues to operate from moment to moment and to go from brush fire to brush fire, without any grand design for the future.

The disruption of organizing a fiscal recovery plan with its painful cuts and reallocations of priorities is now recent history. So it is not as if the county cannot afford the luxury of looking ahead. For citizens who saw in bankruptcy an opportunity to redefine and reposition county government, the results are in and they are a disappointment. In important ways, the county is managed more alertly four years after the bankruptcy, which is good. However, the old sense of government by fiefdom remains, and along with it has been a return to business as usual.

With the county’s bankruptcy plan in place, its debt position is no longer a plausible excuse for failing to tackle long-term questions of infrastructure improvements, and quality of life. For example, the county’s top elected leadership should be doing a much better job of resolving the political problems associated with jail capacity and addressing what to do about overcrowding at Juvenile Hall, Orangewood and in courthouses. Also, with our diverse communities, the county is on the front lines of the nation’s obligation to help those affected by changes in the welfare system.

Our new multiethnic populace summons bold thinking about how these and other government services will be delivered, and how our getting along in this new environment will be facilitated by county leadership. Moreover, on the most important land-use decision facing the county, the future of the El Toro Marine Corps Air Station, the supervisors as a group have been little help in bridging a serious division within the county. For five years now, the split has engendered bitterness, suspicion, and even talk of secession.

The county’s recent decision to do long-range budgetary planning stands out as a notable exception to the more predictable pattern: That is to focus on the latest crisis, and let somebody else worry about the big picture. The continued board squabbling over the role of the county’s top administrative official has been an example of this and a case study in government micromanagement.

And so, a pre-bankruptcy question that has run through recent decades continues now. Where’s the vision? Why isn’t the quality of elected leadership better at the highest level of county government, the Board of Supervisors? Where are the high-caliber public servants who can look beyond today’s political wrangling to set a course for the next century? When will we get decisive action on the jails? Will the impasse over El Toro have to be cleared away in the end by judges?

What is the board, as a group, doing to provide a blueprint for what government can do to serve those who need a helping hand, or to jump-start worthy community projects that one day can carry their own weight?

The answers to all of the above are few.

We ought to hope for a board that can set its own bar at a higher altitude. Unfortunately, surveying the two runoff elections for supervisor this fall, there is little to support any conclusion that significant leadership will come from the eventual winners in these districts.

2nd District. This covers Costa Mesa, Cypress, Garden Grove, Huntington Beach, Los Alamitos, Santa Ana, Seal Beach and Stanton. The race has become in part, perhaps inevitably, a referendum on El Toro reuse because it provides a swing vote that could potentially alter the board’s authorization to proceed with plans for a commercial airport. We are disappointed that neither incumbent Jim Silva, an airport supporter, nor challenger Dave Sullivan, an airport opponent, has helped the county move beyond the polarization by offering some fresh thinking. It doesn’t seem likely that either would provide sufficient impetus to break the logjam in the next four years.

Silva has proved to be a solid citizen who has an even disposition, a sense of fair play and an agreeable personality, his recent differences with one colleague notwithstanding. These qualities certainly count. However, the rigid fiscal austerity that he brought to the board in the immediate post-bankruptcy period has never been supplanted with any overarching vision for what county government ought to be all about. His guiding philosophy seems to be cut, reduce, pay down debt before all things and generally say no even to those who might do good work with a boost from government or those who might need temporary assistance. Sullivan is a very different kind of candidate, who, like Silva, might serve credibly enough, but his campaigns in the spring and fall so far have failed to ignite confidence that he offers a really strong alternative. In the 2nd District, we make no endorsement.

4th District. This covers Anaheim, Buena Park, La Palma, Orange and Placentia. There is no strong candidate to succeed outgoing Supervisor William G. Steiner. Cynthia Coad, a trustee with the North Orange County Community College district, is knowledgeable about vocational training and education, an important component of welfare reform. She supports community policing. Unfortunately, her real strength, public education, is not a central area of responsibility for the supervisors. She may prove over time to be a good learner. The other candidate, Lou Lopez, a retired Anaheim police officer, brings some experience as a former school board trustee and current City Council member, but generally fails to impress. We wonder about his judgment in voting early on for a predictably costly and time-wasting campaign financing investigation for his city. Far too late in the game, he moved to end this exercise in pure politics. In this district too we make no endorsement.

Assessor. There is one other county runoff race, for the post now held by outgoing Assessor Bradley J. Jacobs. James S. Bone, an accountant, remains our choice over Webster J. Guillory, managing deputy assessor. Bone, a former member of the Orange County Assessment Appeals Board and an author on real estate assessment in California, has the knowledge, disposition and style to give the office new and open leadership.