Supervisors vs. Voters

If there’s an award in government service for sheer arrogance, the Orange County Board of Supervisors’ disdainful majority would win it hands down.

Just weeks after voters, by an overwhelming 65% majority, approved Measure H to have the county spend 80% of the annual tobacco settlement funds on health care and none to pay down the county’s bankruptcy debt, the three supervisors again thumbed their noses at the electorate. It happened twice in two days.

First, Board Chairman Chuck Smith, backed by his usual voting cohorts, Supervisors Cynthia P. Coad and Jim Silva, decided to hijack this year’s $28-million allotment to spend as they see fit.

Nevermind what the voters want to do with the money and the clear message they sent in their Nov. 7 vote to give health the priority it deserves. It consistently has been at the lower end of the board’s local spending list. The board majority even is reneging on its previous promise to health care advocates and the community to divide the 2000-01 fiscal year tobacco allotment 50-50, with $14.2 million going to health care needs and $14.2 million to pay down the bankruptcy debt and for new jail beds.

Smith euphemistically referred to his suggestion to back away from the agreed-upon distribution of funds as a “revisit” prompted by the passage of Measure H, which does not become legally binding until July. He reasoned that because the formula for splitting this year’s funds was made before the passage of the November ballot measure, it would be fair to reopen the issue and consider spending as much as possible now on debt reduction.

There is no legal restriction to prevent the board majority from spending this year’s tobacco funds in any way it sees fit. But surely a failure to honor the spirit of the vote was a breach of faith and an insult to the electorate. The nation has just been through an exercise in the importance of voters’ intentions, and here are these local officials acting as if what happens on election day doesn’t matter. Moreover, “revisiting” a decision negotiated earlier showed that the three supervisors cannot be counted on to keep their word.

It’s unlikely that the health care community and the 474,972 residents who voted for Measure H--knowing that the county debt was already covered by a repayment plan--will see Smith’s move as fair play.

There already have been reactions ranging from charges that the board majority doesn’t want to listen to the will of the people to letters to the editor suggesting a recall action.

The issue is supposed to be on the county board’s agenda for its meeting on Tuesday. The board should reconsider and reallocate needed funds to health care.

The second board action in the wake of the election saw the board adding insult to injury by voting, again 3 to 2, to take the passage of Measure H to court and try to have it set aside. It’s the same approach the same three board members took when voters, by an overwhelming majority of 67%, passed Measure F earlier this year to restrict county construction of airports, jails and hazardous waste landfills.

The latest board action has drawn the attention of state Atty. Gen. Bill Lockyer, who is considering getting involved to represent the several hundred thousand county residents who signed to put the initiative on the ballot, and then approved it with a supermajority vote.

But more is at issue than the board majority’s court challenges. What’s most disturbing is the indifference to the strongly expressed will of their constituents shown by Supervisors Smith, Coad and Silva.

It is precisely this kind of arrogance on a separate issue--the impasse over the future of the El Toro Marine Corps Air Station--that argues for the replacement of county supervisors as the Local Redevelopment Authority with a new planning agency that more fairly and fully represents communities with an interest in what happens next at the closed base.

Supervisor Todd Spitzer, who voted against legal challenges to both measures F and H, wisely noted, “Look, this is becoming the rule, not the exception, where voters are telling the board in no uncertain terms: ‘You’re out of touch.’ ” Spitzer gets it. So does Supervisor Tom Wilson.

It’s time Smith, Coad and Silva did too.