Time to Put Politics Aside

Chapman University President James Doti broke into a grin this month when a reporter asked him which categories of the state budget should be spared as Sacramento tries to plug a $21-billion budget hole. “Higher education,” the economist quipped.

Ask board members at the Orange County Transportation Authority what should be spared and the answer will be transportation funding. The county’s health professionals understandably will rally support for public health care. The emphatic response at county school districts will be to protect elementary and secondary education. And so it will go with every other special interest.

The pain already is being felt in the county.

OCTA’s long-awaited expansion of the Garden Grove Freeway is likely to be delayed because the governor’s hit list includes $1.8 billion in transportation project funding, including $174 million earmarked for the freeway that hasn’t had a major upgrade since it opened 35 years ago. OCTA also faces the loss of $17.5 million for street improvements around the county and $12 million to rebuild a heavily used rail corridor that travels through parts of Placentia and Anaheim. The rail corridor, incidentally, is where three people died in April when a freight train hit a Metrolink passenger train.

The Irvine Unified School District recently warned that it might have to cut as much as $4.5 million from this year’s midyear budget. Bill Bowman, executive director of the Regional Center of Orange County, used a column in the Dec. 8 edition of The Times to plead with lawmakers to do the right thing and not cut the budget of the agency that helps the disabled to lead safe, healthy lives.

Local legislators already are making time to each bash competing proposals. Republicans are lobbying for more cuts, and Democrats are pushing equally hard for new taxes. That approach ignores the hard reality. Legislators must remember that partisan politics won’t help county residents who will be hurt as programs and services are cut. With that in mind, the local delegation must remember that it was elected to serve voters, not to use the budget crisis for political grandstanding.