County to Reimburse Its Measure H Foe

After numerous delays, county supervisors on Tuesday unanimously approved giving a Newport Beach physician $60,000 to pay his legal fees for successfully defending himself and the tobacco initiative from the county’s court challenge.

The decision ends a bitter campaign that pitted the three-member board majority against health care and community leaders over how tens of millions of dollars in tobacco settlement money would be spent.

“I feel great,” said Dr. J. Brennan Cassidy, immediate past president of the Orange County Medical Assn., who was the sole defendant in the county’s legal challenge. “It’s always good to have a win.”

Michele Revelle, director of public affairs for the medical association, said she was glad the bickering over legal costs was over.

“We’re pleased to resolve the final chapter and come to a resolution in this case,” she said.

Measure H mandated that most of the $750 million in tobacco settlement funds the county will receive during the next 25 years be spent on health care, not on bankruptcy debt and jail beds as the board majority had wanted.

The county, at the insistence of Chairwoman Cynthia P. Coad and Supervisors Jim Silva and Chuck Smith, sued to keep the initiative off the ballot but lost. After it was approved by 65% of the voters in November, they sued to block its implementation.

Supervisors had argued the measure illegally binds them and future boards to spending tobacco funds primarily on health care. But an Orange County Superior Court commissioner in February upheld the measure’s constitutionality, handing the board majority a major setback.

“I believe it’s time now that we have to move on,” said Coad after announcing the board’s decision Tuesday following a brief closed session. “We need to put the money to work now.”

The measure, which becomes effective July 1, requires the county to spend 80% of its annual $30-million share of a national tobacco settlement on health care and anti-smoking programs.

Supervisor Todd Spitzer, who with Supervisor Tom Wilson had endorsed Measure H, said he was pleased the board had taken the action and not decided to appeal the court commissioner’s ruling.

“When people come forward to assert their legal rights and they’re shown to be right in court, then they’re entitled to their legal fees,” said Spitzer, the only attorney on the board.

The legal costs are minimal, said Spitzer. Cassidy and the Orange County Medical Assn., which funded the initiative campaign, could have fought to be compensated for all $800,000 they spent, he said.