A Governmental Crisis Persists

Orange County supervisors on Tuesday granted a reprieve to their embattled top executive, Jan Mittermeier. Whether the top position in county government is held by her or shifts eventually to another bureaucrat, the county’s post-bankruptcy crisis of confidence remains.

The overwhelming passage of Measure F signaled that many in Orange County have little faith in county government and are so concerned about what its decisions will mean for their lives that they want drastic oversight on some key policy considerations.

It’s up to the supervisors, especially Charles V. Smith, Cynthia Coad and Jim Silva, and Mittermeier herself, to hear that message. First, change the tone of county government and its relationship with the people. Let’s have less posturing and rigidity on policy matters and more meaningful communication within and outside the Hall of Administration.

Mittermeier’s latest crisis arose from the impasse over the proposed commercial airport at El Toro. While those three of the county’s five supervisors supported a big, 29-million-passenger airport, more than two-thirds of the voters last month approved Measure F, which requires a two-third vote for new or expanded airports, jails and toxic-waste sites.

The county now has suspended all contracts related to El Toro. But it is unclear just what can be done at the base, since Measure F apparently allows some functions to continue. The future of the base also is before the courts, so the county will have to develop several plans of action to reflect a judicial ruling.

The most important thing on this question will be to abandon a top-down attitude of management toward the cities and their residents. Begin working within the constraints of the initiative with people outside county government to find a satisfactory plan for El Toro base reuse.

Another hot topic will be added jail beds. For more than two decades the county has been under a court order to end jail overcrowding. There is hope that a new, expensive jail will not be needed. New projections of crime rates prompted the sheriff and the cities of Irvine and Lake Forest to come up with a compromise to expand the James A. Musick Branch Jail, but not house maximum-security convicts there. It’s up to the supervisors to sign off on that deal or explain why not.

Although the county says its measurements of health care for residents compare favorably with those of other counties in the state, there is room for major improvement. More community clinics are needed. People without health insurance need to be helped to obtain it. The executive officer should try to facilitate a compromise between the health care groups seeking more funds from a national tobacco settlement and supervisors bent on paying off debt.

Dissatisfaction with a county administrative officer or executive officer is nothing new. The first CAO, Robert E. Thomas, retired 15 years ago after some supervisors expressed dissatisfaction with the way he was doing the job. It couldn’t have been too bad, though. When he retired, the supervisors named the Hall of Administration for Thomas.

There are surely no current plans to memorialize Mittermeier, whose era hangs on the thread of a 3-2 vote. The county now has restored a sound fiscal credit rating after the bankruptcy, which is important, but it must restore its credit with voters.