Orange County Voices : COMMENTARY ON BANKRUPTCY : Maybe It’s Time We All Worked as a Team to Right the Ship : Responsibility goes both ways. Politicians must be strong and willing to make hard choices, while voters must be informed and involved, looking at the big picture.

Under the pressures of a state legislative adjournment deadline, Orange County moved from rejection of Measure R to reluctant acceptance of a financially shaky bankruptcy plan that finds pots of gold in imported garbage, in diverted transportation funds and in the unpredictable outcome of one or more lawsuits.

At the same time, like knights in search of the Holy Grail, we look for guaranteed salvation of a different sort in the restructuring of county government. Can it be that there is no simple solution to a problem that is at once more fundamental and more complex than we’re ready to admit?

It was a convenient myth for both sides of the Measure R debate to lay most of the blame for Orange County’s financial fiasco on former Treasurer-Tax Collector Robert L. Citron. Those opposed to further taxes managed, by ignoring the connection between the elected and their electors, to absolve themselves of any responsibility for the crisis; and those who supported the half-cent raise in the sales tax could keep the debate focused on Measure R and avoid the quagmire of complex causes.

As county after county in California finds itself in troubled financial waters, with Los Angeles County the most immediate and highly visible example, it becomes harder to cling to the single culprit theory. Certainly incompetence, and worse, on the part of people involved, helped bring on the crises, but the problems facing California counties are systemic, and the responsibility is diffused throughout the body politic.

A good starting point is Proposition 13. When it first passed in 1978, the state was able to step in and help cities and counties meet budgeting problems. In recent years the trend has reversed, as the state has been unable to deal realistically with its own growing financial difficulties. Cities and counties, which have fewer revenue options than the state, have been running out of ways to pay for the level of services citizens expect.

Another factor at work is the pervasive anti-tax, anti-government mood of the American public, which is cynically manipulated by those with political ambitions. The anti-tax message in Proposition 13 was not lost upon those holding or seeking elective office. Instead of debating the role of government and the function of taxes in a free society, politicians of all parties express their abhorrence of taxes and rail against the size of government.

An unfortunate result of such demagoguery is that much of the public has seized upon the anti-tax, anti-government message with the fervor of true believers. Thus, it is seen as political suicide to take a pro-government, pro-tax stance. If caught in a serious revenue crunch, politicians are trapped by their own game. When forced to choose between what they see as their own political survival or a necessary but unpopular action, they are inclined to let education, the environment and social services for the poor deteriorate, thus sacrificing long-term public good for their own short-term political gain.

Anti-government rhetoric also helps to fuel the alienation and disengagement of an alarming percentage of potential voters. Witness the 67% of registered Orange County voters who felt no responsibility to cast a vote for or against Measure R--arguably the most important election ever held in Orange County.

The indifference toward political involvement is not isolated to Orange County. It is reflected in counties and cities throughout the United States. Certainly today, with many working people facing job uncertainty and shrinking buying power, cynicism about government’s ability to deliver for them is understandable. Resentment against those less fortunate who receive direct government help is replacing compassion. More disturbing is that even among the very comfortable classes there is a growing hostility toward any sense of community--a positive disdain for the notion of collective responsibility.

Thus the focus in counties in crisis tends not to be on how to maintain services, but on how to cut them. It tends to be not on how to improve government, but on how to dismantle it: Fire its employees. Sell its assets. Put the public’s business in private hands.

In Orange County it has quickly become the conventional wisdom that the structure of government is seriously flawed and must go through radical restructuring and downsizing. There is a push toward scrapping the current system for some as yet ill-defined, new and better way of operating. Out with “business as usual” and in with--what?

Certainly county government, like every organization, needs regular and continuing evaluation of its structure and methods. Recent events demonstrate that Orange County needs better management. But how to achieve that? Should we change from general law to charter government? Perhaps. But charter counties such as Los Angeles are in trouble too; and a poorly thought-out and hastily written charter could be worse than what we have now.

Should the treasurer and other officials be appointed instead of elected? Maybe. But only if those doing the appointing set excellent criteria and seek the best possible applicants rather than making politically motivated appointments.

Should we have part-time or full-time supervisors? These, and many other questions, are worthy of discussion. However, it will take more than restructuring to make right what is now wrong in Orange County and elsewhere.

A good structure is only the framework. Like that song, “Looking for Love in All the Wrong Places,” we might be looking for solutions in all the wrong places.

For, however the handling of the public’s business is reordered, if the majority of the population remains ill-informed and disengaged, if there remains a pervasive cynicism and distrust of government and if there is a lack of wise and courageous leadership, it will still be “business as usual” in Orange County.