I delivered the following message at the January 23 meeting of the Orange County Board of Supervisors:

Orange County. It means so much to so many.

It is balmy beaches with splashing kids, and rolling foothills aglow with wildflowers. It is crowded freeways and peaceful parks. It is sprawling mansions and compact tract homes, whose economy ranges from this year’s strawberry crop to tomorrow’s biomedical innovations. It is the vacation destination of a lifetime and a daily destination for inbound commuters.

Social Trends Positive

As Chairman of the Orange County Board of Supervisors, I am happy to report that the state of our county for 2007 is strong. Statistics can only partially reflect the lives of our three million neighbors. But here’s what they tell us:

Orange County residents are among the most educated in the nation. Fully a third of OC adults have college degrees, while almost 200,000 are enrolled in our fourteen universities and community colleges.

Our county’s unemployment rate hovers at just 3.4%, one of the state’s lowest, with average private sector wages rising by 6.3% in the past year. Far from the bedroom suburb of yesteryear, Orange County is an employment center for a quarter million commuters daily arriving from neighboring counties.

Orange County’s families are thriving. In the past decade, the juvenile crime rate has decreased by 19% and the divorce rate is down by 5%. During that same time, the number receiving public assistance has been cut in half, as government policies focus on incentives rather than dependency. Our schools and parks host record numbers of youngsters participating in after school and community recreational activities.

Our County has long been a magnet for Americans seeking the California Dream, and for immigrants seeking the American Dream. This past year, our population grew by barely 1%, the lowest rate since the Great Depression. Infill development has shifted that growth to thriving urban centers like Downtown Fullerton, Santa Ana and Anaheim’s Platinum Triangle.

Challenge for County Government

For Orange County government, 2006 was a year of transition, with two new Supervisors added and a third soon to be elected in the First District.

Those 18,000 of us who work for the County of Orange play a vital role in protecting and serving our residents. We will build on past experience to face the challenges that lie ahead this year.

Public protection is government’s most basic responsibility. Since 1994, Orange County’s crime rate has fallen by 45%. Orange Countians are the safest they’ve been in forty years. Our felony conviction rate is now 90%, one of the state’s highest. Credit the staff of Orange County’s District Attorney and Sheriff’s Department, along with modern technology, a vigilant public and demographic trends.

My goal as Chairman is to make our County even safer in 2007 by fully utilizing the cross-training of deputies to identify and deport criminal aliens. We will work to complete the Musick Jail and to develop a local DNA data base. DNA testing holds the promise of both speedier convictions and the exoneration of those falsely accused and imprisoned.

Our efforts to protect public health range from over 200,000 yearly inoculations against infectious diseases to nearly 30,000 annual inspections of OC eating establishments. But County emergency rooms are not equipped to bear the growing burden of routine medical care for the uninsured. New state and federal health initiatives should be structured to better allocate health resources.

Property: Use What We Have, Sell the Rest

Soon we will complete the Facilities Master Plan and my goal is to implement it. For too long, the County has owned empty buildings and vacant land while departments, such as Animal Care, operate in overcrowded conditions. We occupy leased space in private buildings while under using the ones we own. My goal is to consolidate and fully utilize all county buildings and real estate, and then sell those that are surplus, including our 100 acres at the old El Toro site.

We must continue our disaster preparedness efforts. While 9/11 has focused our efforts on terrorism, the greater threat lies just beneath us, in the form of potentially destructive earthquakes. Our 360 miles of flood control channels and the improvements to Prado Dam make us even more prepared for the inevitable deluge. Our drainage system must also be modified to help clean up urban runoff. By returning flood control channels to their more natural state, we can improve water quality, aesthetics and recreational opportunities.

We will look afresh at the County’s system of parks, beaches and harbors. My goal is to address the North-South imbalance of park facilities that has become a key issue in the 1 st District Special election. While policing the county-owned facility at Dana Point is the County’s responsibility, the cost of harbor safety in Huntington Beach and Newport Beach should be borne by those cities.

Orange County Airport is now the 7 th busiest in the state, ranking just behind Sacramento and well ahead of Ontario and Burbank. The coming year will see major terminal upgrades, better food service and new specialty concessions for 9.6 million projected passengers.

Election Proliferation

Registering voters, conducting elections and determining their results are the responsibility of county government, and county government alone. Changing state and federal mandates plus a proliferation of special and recall elections has given the Registrar of Voters new and complex challenges. While 2007 may be an off-year, we already have a February 6 th special election for the 1st Supervisorial seat. Next year, we will likely have to conduct two primary elections, the regular in June and a separate presidential primary in February. We will meet this challenge while constantly readjusting precinct boundaries to better equalize waiting times. We will enlist a new generation of poll workers to the skills and the joys of conducting elections.

The 1994 bankruptcy debt was refinanced by this Board, saving taxpayers $505 million and shortening the payoff by ten years. My goal is to accelerate further that payoff with available new revenues.

As a Board, we must be vigilant with the public purse. Our $5.56 billion annual budget represents $1,853 for each Orange Countian. My goal is to assure that our constituents are getting that much worth of services.

We should provide the services that individuals cannot provide for themselves, but allow them the freedom to run their own lives. We must use existing funds more efficiently, not simply cry for more. We must evaluate our programs based on their results, not their intentions. We must judge our actions on how they affect the next generation, not the next election.

Facing the Retirement Burden

As a Board, we will continue to foster a mutually respectful relationship with our employee organizations. Whatever our differences, we are bound by the same facts. Burgeoning retirement costs will not be borne by raising taxes nor should they be borne by cutting raises for current employees. We are one of the first California counties to face its unfunded retiree medical costs. Last year, labor groups representing 90% of our workforce agreed to needed reforms that have reduced the unfunded retiree medical liability from $1.4 billion to $598 million. My goal as Chairman is a fair and equitable new contract with our Sheriff’s deputies that will further reduce this remaining liability.

Board’s Key Regional Role

As Supervisors we wear many hats. We sit as a group and as individuals on the governing bodies of numerous other agencies and regional councils. Today we will be confirming our representatives on those boards.

On the Orange County Transportation Authority, we supervisors make up about a third of its Board of Directors. We will administer $850 million this year in locally-generated and locally-controlled transportation money.

On the California State Association of Counties, Supervisor Bates will be a strong voice for the state resources commensurate with our state-mandated responsibilities, and for fiscal equity for Orange County.

We must seek basic reforms to a local government revenue system that currently makes our cities too heavily dependent on sales taxes, thus incentivizing commercial development while penalizing new housing.

On the Orange County Fire Authority, Supervisors Campbell and Bates will help protect our unincorporated communities and work with the 22 contract cities. Following our Board’s example, they can bring a more hands-on approach to collective bargaining.

On the Local Agency Formation Commission, Supervisors Campbell, Moorlach and Bates will work to determine the political destinies of unincorporated communities and scattered county islands. Pending legislation may also give LAFCO greater oversight of redevelopment agencies, so as to control their diversion of property tax revenues from the county. Public money needed for county services should not be diverted to subsidize private development.

On the Foothill/Eastern Transportation Corridor Agency, Supervisor Bates, Campbell and I will work to complete the last 16 mile link, currently facing legal and political obstacles. The Foothill South extension can be compatible with its environment, especially when it will relieve the congestion and pollution of the I-5 through South County.

A Look at the Fourth

While serving the County as a whole, we Supervisors have a special interest in the cities in our district.

In Anaheim, my goal is completing the Katella Yard move to its new Orange location, then commence development of ARTIC, the Anaheim Regional Transportation Intermodal Center, a transit crossroads for the region.

In Fullerton, we will continue OCTA funding for new parking facilities and expanded Metrolink service, which are transforming downtown Fullerton into tomorrow’s transit village.

In Buena Park, OCTA’s I-5 Gateway project promises temporary disruptions, and long term traffic relief as we extend north the improvements to the Santa Ana Freeway. OC Parks will expand the paleontology museum at Clark Park, shared by both Buena Park and Fullerton.

In La Habra, the heavily used County library branch will see continued upgrades as a centerpiece of that civic center. We will work to incorporate the last seven unincorporated islands into that city.

In Placentia, working with OCTA, we will continue improvements to the major rail corridor that has had such an impact on traffic and noise. We will complete the improvements to OC Parks’ Key Ranch facility, one of the last working orange groves in this, its namesake county.

These challenges are formidable and these goals are ambitious. But we have the people to take them on, and the leadership of this Board to see them to completion. On behalf of the Orange County Board of Supervisors, I join our three million constituents to build on the accomplishments of the past and to face the future with hope and confidence.