Supervisors Get an Earful at Night Session

SANTA ANA —  As the Board of Supervisors held its first night meeting in recent Orange County history, angry residents turned out by the hundreds Tuesday to complain about the bankruptcy debacle and demand greater accountability from their elected officials.

Normally, a handful of gadflies, county heads and interested parties are the only eyes and ears at board meetings. But an overflow crowd of more than 250, possibly a record turnout, filled the county’s public hearing room and jammed into a second room for a meeting that went late into the night.

County residents eagerly took the opportunity to address the board, some taking them to task for the county’s bankruptcy fallout and others hotly debating development of the El Toro Marine Corp Air Station. But one Irvine attorney was not alone when he complained about a lack of county leadership and accused the board of trying to duck its responsibilities.

“It amazes me that you believe the public should not direct their anger at you for your terrible mismanagement . . . because you made the decisions,” said Thomas M. Whaling, who also criticized the county’s public relations firm, which recently billed taxpayers more than $230,000 for less than a month’s work.

“Which one of you had the bright idea to hire a public relations firm for hundreds of thousands of dollars at taxpayers’ expense to put a spin on the bankruptcy?” he demanded.

An irate Cary Stuart, 38, of Anaheim Hills told the board, “If this were a Japanese corporation, you would have committed hari kari by now.”

Stuart saved his sharpest attacks for Board Chairman Gaddi H. Vasquez and Supervisor Roger R. Stanton, the two longest-sitting members of the board. He criticized them for taking campaign contributions from financial institutions, and accused them of lying under oath while testifying earlier this month before a state Senate panel in Sacramento. That prompted Vasquez to curtail Stuart’s time at the podium, saying he was “crossing the line of decency and respect.”

Before he relinquished the microphone, however, Stuart demanded that the pair resign.

“Gentlemen, you are a disgrace. You people are the root of the problem,” he said. “Nobody’s going to elect you to dogcatcher now.”

The board traditionally meets on Tuesday mornings, when most Orange County residents are working. County activists have criticized the morning meetings as an irksome example of government working for itself, not the people it serves.

In the wake of the Dec. 6 bankruptcy, Vasquez proposed holding a nightly board meeting once a month to give residents greater access. The measure was approved Tuesday and could mark a county first: No one keeps track, but old-timers say there hasn’t been a night meeting in at least 25 years.

But for some, it was still not enough.

“For the first time in recent years, working taxpayers are here and able to see for themselves how the county is run,” said Bill Ward, a member of Committees of Correspondence, a taxpayer advocacy group that includes members from Ross Perot’s United We Stand. “At the risk of seeming ungrateful, however, I would like to point out that having one evening meeting a month means most meetings will still be out of sight of working taxpayers.”

At a meeting today, the Committees of Correspondence will decide whether to launch recall movements against supervisors and other top county elected officials.

In other board action, members of the Committees of Correspondence complained that bankruptcy losses are not being equally shared and demanded that two recently retired supervisors should not have parks named after them because of their role in the county financial crisis.

The board did not rename the parks but passed a resolution stating that future parks will be named after public officials only after their deaths.

Before the Dec. 6 bankruptcy, the board voted to name a park in Huntington Beach after Harriett M. Wieder and one near Mission Viejo after Thomas F. Riley, both of whom retired last month but were still in office when the parks were named after them.

Members also complained that supervisors have proposed returning 100% of school districts’ investments in the pool, leaving other investors to carry greater losses. But a majority of the board insists on sparing schools, which was welcome news to a large number of parents who attended the meeting.

Earlier in the day, the Board of Supervisors met briefly in closed session to discuss hiring an interim chief executive officer. The board announced that it will interview four candidates and that the list may grow.

The candidates are: Hugh Hewitt, an attorney and talk show host; Jan Mittermeier, director of John Wayne Airport; Ed Dundon, former superintendent of the Garden Grove Unified School District; and Sanford Sigoloff, a former executive at Builders Emporium and Wickes furniture store who is mentioned as the supervisors’ leading candidate.

The chief executive will replace former Chief Administrative Officer Ernie Schneider, who was demoted last week because the board was dissatisfied with his bankruptcy recovery plans.

Supervisors have said the interim manager will stay for up to nine months while they conduct a nationwide search for a permanent leader.