Parting Shot Hits the Mark

The 1984-85 Orange County Grand Jury completed its year-long job of monitoring and evaluating county government last Friday as frustrated over some old, old issues as any of its predecessors were.

In a parting shot, the jury criticized the county Board of Supervisors for commissioning so many outside studies--more than $1 million worth in the last fiscal year alone.

Actually, the jury was not so upset by the way the county consults consultants as by the fact that nothing ever comes of the consultations unless someone puts intense pressure on the board to act.

You can argue with the jury if you must, but history is on its side.

Thomas J. Kehoe, the outgoing grand jury foreman, offered the county’s John Wayne Airport and the County Jail as two examples of problems that supervisors have been slow to resolve.

The airport has been the subject of millions of dollars worth of consultation and nearly two decades of debate. Yet the board seems no closer than ever to finding a site for another commercial jet airport.

Nor has it picked a site for a new County Jail, even though there is no disagreement about the crucial need for one. The board and the sheriff stalled for seven years before acting last March to comply with a federal court order to end overcrowding at the jail. They might have dragged their feet another seven years if a federal judge had not found the county in criminal contempt and imposed a fine.

The jury report makes it pretty clear that many studies are commissioned to gain time, not knowledge. Even the most sophisticated consultants cannot always produce answers that are politically as well as practically acceptable.

The public must, as the jury foreman noted, share the blame. Its “nimby” attitude that admits the problem but takes a not-in-my-backyard position when it comes to solutions on such things as airports, jails, transportation corridors and trash- and waste-disposal sites does not make solutions easier. But those attitudes still don’t relieve the county board of its responsibility to act.

Action in some instances should have been taken 10 or 20 years ago, when many of the problems were just as evident and could have been more easily solved. The grand jury was right to remind the county board not to keep delaying major decisions. The only way the board can be right is to take that advice to heart.