EDITORIAL:

Scott Baugh, the Orange County GOP chairman, did the smart thing this week and divorced himself of his ties with Newport Beach drug and alcohol rehabilitation home operators.

That’s not to say that we think he did anything wrong when he represented CRC Health Group Inc. in its bid to resolve the issues Newport Beach has with the company.

But, unfortunately, Baugh got twisted up in the knotty debate over the proliferation of recovery homes in Newport Beach. The critics say there are just too many concentrated in too small an area and are demanding that their leaders do whatever is necessary to thin the herd.

Baugh says he was hired to help broker a compromise to keep the city from passing an ordinance to regulate the homes, but he realized that isn’t going to happen with so many indignant residents clamoring for action. Baugh believes that state and federal laws regarding the care of those with disabilities handcuffs any city efforts to control the homes. And he denies lobbying to kill a bill sponsored by state Sen. Tom Harman that would make it illegal for the homes to be built within 300 feet of each other. That bill and one Baugh introduced in 1999 were doomed by federal law, he says.

Still, the rehab home critics continued to hammer away at Baugh, so he wisely stepped aside. As Chris in the Morning on “Northern Exposure” once said: “Talking perceptions, people. Do we really see each other for what we really are, or do we just see what we want to see, the image distorted by our own personal lenses?”

In a commentary Baugh wrote for the Pilot, he made the case for a compromise.

“Serious leadership in the future on this complex issue will necessarily involve a compromise. Compromise will not satisfy everybody, but the status quo apparently does not either.”

Well said, and something everyone in the community should consider. We should move on from the angry recriminations, come together as a community and forge a solution. And that would mean everyone at the table, from rehab home operators to their critics. Lawsuits will just prove painful and costly to everyone involved.