Supervisors vs. Ballot Box--Again

Orange County supervisors have set themselves up for another black eye with their ill-advised rejection last week of a compromise plan to spend money from a settlement with tobacco companies.

States, counties and health care groups sued the tobacco firms because their products damage health and leave others to pick up the bills for treating cancer, emphysema, heart disease and other ailments.

The proper way to spend the expected funds in Orange County, more than $700 million in the next 25 years, is for community clinics, stop-smoking programs and other supplements to county government’s meager expenditures on health care. Instead, the supervisors insisted again last week that they wanted to spend most of the money to retire debt incurred after the 1994 bankruptcy and add jail beds.

The likely result: an initiative sponsored by a coalition of health care providers on the November ballot that would force the county to spend 80% of the funds on health, not the 60% health care groups offered in the compromise.

If the initiative passes, it will be the second rebuff to supervisors in eight months. In March voters overwhelmingly registered dissatisfaction with county planning for a commercial airport at El Toro, requiring a two-thirds vote on major projects.

Health care groups began talking to the county a year ago about spending the tobacco settlement funds. Supervisors originally wanted to spend 80% retiring debt and adding jail beds. A belated attempt this week for a 50-50 compromise was too little, too late.

Supervisor Cynthia P. Coad said the 60-40 split jeopardized public safety. But the Sheriff’s Department said it had no problem with the split. Coad and Supervisors Chuck Smith and Jim Silva said the compromise would tie the hands of future supervisors. Yes, that was the point. As with El Toro, health professionals did not trust the county. They wanted something in writing, not an airy promise that money saved in interest as the county paid off some debt could wind up going for health.

Supervisors are now trying to figure out how to keep the initiative off the ballot. If they fail and the measure passes, it will be the fault of three supervisors who again misread the public will.