Supervisors, CEO Struggling Again

Orange County supervisors, criticized last year for handing over too much power to the county executive officer, are once again engaged in a struggle with Jan Mittermeier over the extent of her authority.

Mittermeier recently tried to fire a well-regarded department head--without notifying supervisors or giving them a reason for her action once they found out. This time, her attempt has upset even her staunchest allies on the Board of Supervisors.

Board Chairman Charles V. Smith, who negotiated Mittermeier’s contract last fall, now says he “made a mistake” in not pushing for board oversight of all of Mittermeier’s personnel decisions.

“I don’t like the tactic that was used,” Smith said about Mittermeier’s effort to oust John Sibley, head of the huge Public Facilities and Resources Department.

“The board should be apprised and a consensus taken before these things are done,” Smith said. “The board is still running the county.”

Sibley has been popular with county officials, and his department, one of the county’s largest, has earned good marks overall for financial operations and internal controls in audits this year. The audits found only minor deficiencies.

Supervisors privately criticized Mittermeier after they discovered that she had told Sibley two months ago to find another job. She recently informed board members that she would instead reassign him, effective July 6, to the county’s waste management office. He will be replaced with that agency’s head, Vicky Wilson.

The resources department, which oversees planning and the county’s harbors, beaches and parks, has 1,370 employees and a budget of $445 million a year. The landfill office has 478 employees and an annual budget of $111 million.

Sibley declined to comment on the situation. A county employee for 23 years, he earns $108,971 as head of the resources agency. Wilson earns $103,314 a year.

Mittermeier, who makes $160,000 a year, declined comment on her actions against Sibley, other than to say the reassignments are good for both departments and both managers.

Supervisors, though, remained uneasy about the job switch.

Supervisor Tom Wilson said he asked Smith to schedule a closed-door meeting--without Mittermeier present--to discuss the matter. Supervisors Jim Silva and Todd Spitzer supported the private meeting, which Smith said he is considering.

But taking action now against Mittermeier would mean changing her contract, Smith said, and that could prompt her to resign. “I’m not sure I want to do that,” he said.

With questions arising publicly this week about her role, Mittermeier sent a two-page memo to supervisors late Thursday explaining the job switch and criticizing Sibley for, among other things, what she described as unwieldy management organization, lack of initiative and leadership and lack of vision.

“While John has made various attempts to address these issues, he has clearly not met the expectations that I have outlined for him,” she wrote.

Sibley’s defenders said none of Mittermeier’s concerns was highlighted in previous audits. He was in charge of the agency when it was created in 1996 from two agencies and oversaw the reorganization that cut 220 positions and saved $10.2 million a year.

Mittermeier’s broad powers and sometimes secretive ways became a campaign issue in last year’s board elections, but she has won praise for helping the county out of its historic bankruptcy. Since her appointment in 1995, she has overseen the restructuring of several government agencies, including creation of the resources department.

The 3-2 board majority that approved her contract last fall has only itself to blame for her unilateral decisions, said Mark P. Petracca, a UCI political science professor who has criticized supervisors for putting too much power in the hands of a single, unelected bureaucrat.

“The problem isn’t what she decided to do with a single employee; the problem is how she did it,” Petracca said.

“As CEO, she’s decided that all information is on a need-to-know basis, and she determines who needs to know, even with her bosses,” he said. “This is no way to run government. It’s even no way to run a business.”

Among Mittermeier’s defenders have been Smith and Silva, who said the county needs a strong chief executive to make decisions. But both criticized her handling of the Sibley matter this week, saying she lost sight of her responsibility to “count to three.”

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Mittermeier can be replaced by three votes from supervisors. The board also can override her hiring choices on a four-fifths vote. But Smith acknowledges that the contract allows her to fire employees without board approval.

“That was my doing and an admitted mistake,” he said, adding that the board should have included an override clause for firings as well.

Silva declined to discuss the reassignment Thursday but praised Sibley for responding to environmental issues in his northwestern coastal district. He said Sibley accompanied him to Washington in April and was instrumental in crafting a federal flood-control agreement that saved county taxpayers about $40 million.

“I have always felt that the Orange County Board of Supervisors are the ones who are in charge of the county,” Silva said. “The position that Jan Mittermeier holds is as an employee.”

Supervisor Cynthia Coad was the lone board member to back Mittermeier.

“I look on it as a management rotation,” Coad said of the job swap between Wilson and Sibley.