$20 Billion Needed for Upgrades, Panel Says

Orange County needs to spend up to $20 billion over the next two decades on school facilities, roads, sewage and water pipes, and other infrastructure, according to panelists at an Orange County Business Council conference Tuesday in Huntington Beach.

Blake Anderson, general manager of the Orange County Sanitation District and a council board member, said that total would include $10 billion in highway and other transportation improvements, $1 billion to handle urban runoff, $2 billion for schools and $3 billion for waste-water improvements.

“Investing in infrastructure is essential to maintain Orange County’s quality of life and economic prosperity,” said business council President Stan Oftelie.

Anderson and others acknowledged, however, that winning public approval for such large expenditures would be tough, especially because a two-thirds’ majority of voters is needed for tax increases.

Ray Watson, past president and chief executive officer of the Irvine Co., the county’s largest landowner and developer, said, “There is a huge gulf between the concerns of the state’s policy elite and the strong opinions of the electorate.”

The public has largely resisted more taxes to improve infrastructure.

Watson said Orange County is not alone, that nationally, a decades-long “decline in political leadership has resulted in our current epidemic of overcrowded schools, declining water supplies, overcrowded roads and, at times, electrical blackouts.”

Anderson said spending $1 a day per person per year in the county would pay for the improvements.