Meaning of Charter’s Thumping Loss Unclear

SANTA ANA — Orange County voters spoke loud and clear this week, but what did they say?

Is their resounding rejection of the proposed charter measure an endorsement of the status quo or a message that the county’s post-bankruptcy restructuring efforts have fallen short of their expectations?

County leaders and political observers were searching for answers Wednesday as they tried to interpret the vote. About the only thing people agree on is that 15 months after the nation’s worst municipal bankruptcy, little has been done to change the way the county is governed.

“It represents a real missed opportunity.” said Robert Poole, president of Reason Foundation, a Libertarian think tank based in Los Angeles. “People are not very engaged in county government and what it does. The bankruptcy has had little effect on their lives.”

The charter initiative, known as Measure T, was hailed as the centerpiece of the Board of Supervisors’ effort to reform government in the wake of the financial crisis. It was the product of months of work by a panel of activists, politicians and business leaders who sought to address many of the structural flaws that the bankruptcy exposed within county government.

Supervisor Marian Bergeson, a supporter of the charter form of government, said she was disappointed by the vote but prepared to move forward on other ideas to restructure government.

“I think the voters are demanding change but they are not certain how to frame it. It is hard to conceptualize,” she said.

Measure T would have established the Board of Supervisors as a policy-making body and would have limited members to two four-year terms. A companion ballot proposal, Measure U, would have increased the number of board members from five to nine. It also failed.

A charter is an individually crafted set of laws. About a dozen of California’s 58 counties are governed by charters. The rest--including Orange County--are governed by general laws of the state.

Under Measure T, the chief executive officer would have run day-to-day county affairs and had the power to hire and fire top officials. The charter also would have afforded greater opportunities to privatize services.

The most controversial element of the charter was a provision to convert four elective county posts, including treasurer, to appointive offices. Backers said the measures would have helped ensure that the highly technical jobs were filled by the most qualified candidates, not simply those who could win elections. They pointed out the former county Treasurer-Tax Collector Robert L. Citron was reelected to office in 1994 just months before his risky investment practices plunged the county into bankruptcy.

Voters on Tuesday, however, didn’t agree that the charter was the way to revamp the county’s government. They rejected Measure T by a 3-2 ratio.

“There is concern any time you eliminate voter choice,” said Bill Mitchell, chairman of Common Cause. “The general distrust of government includes expanding the ability of elected or hired officials to conduct government by appointment.”

Measure T foes said making the elective positions appointive was a major factor in the charter’s demise.

“The bankruptcy was not caused by too much democracy,” said Bruce Whitaker, a Fullerton anti-tax activist. “We need more democracy, not less. The charter offered less democracy because it took the right to vote away.”

Some charter detractors said a fatal flaw in the proposal was that it was too vague and did not specify how new taxes could be imposed on county residents.

Other observers Wednesday said the election results show that the public is not interested in turning over control of government to a corporate-style structure run by bureaucrats. Similar ballot measures in Brea, Huntington Beach, Orange and San Clemente to make elective treasurer posts appointive also failed Tuesday.

Fred Smoller, associate professor of political science at Chapman University, said, “Voters are unwilling to accept the responsibility [of the electoral process], but they are also unwilling to relinquish any control.”

Smoller added that the pro-charter people failed to explain how the charter would fix the county’s governmental ills. To many residents, he said, the bankruptcy had more to do with “personality than structure.”

A Times Orange County Poll released earlier this month found that only 4 in 10 respondents believed the passage of Measure T would make government leaders more likely to spend taxpayer dollars wisely and better represent the needs of residents.

Charter supporters said the defeat of Measure T should not be viewed as a public rejection of all the proposal’s provisions.

Todd Nicholson, executive director of the Orange County Business Council, said public opinion polls have found significant support for supervisor term limits and on having the county run by a strong chief executive.

“I think this was a complex issue. People had to really sit down and read about it to understand all the distinctions,” Nicholson said. “It’s probably too early to speculate, but I wouldn’t be surprised if we see another charter on a future ballot. . . . It might take two or three tries to get the message across.”

Some Measure T foes agreed, saying they plan to ask the supervisors to place on the November ballot an alternative charter that calls for more sweeping changes than the defeated proposal.

But first the activists hope to hold a “convention” that would allow the public to make suggestions for the alternative charter.

Patrick Quaney, head of the anti-charter campaign, said the defeat of Measure T--which supervisors placed on the ballot in December and which had the backing of business leaders--shows that “the people in power have no credibility.”

“The Board of Supervisors is very dysfunctional,” Quaney said. “They are not responsive to the electorate and totally out of touch with the people who elect them and pay taxes.”