Supervisors’ notebook

Public comment
Representatives from local not-for-profits spoke to county officials at the Feb. 24 Orange County Board of Supervisors meeting during the public comment portion of the meeting. Ed Harvey, on behalf of the Arts Center in Orange, and Helen Marie Taylor, for the James Madison Museum, reminded supervisors of their organizations’ potential contribution to the county. Harvey and Taylor respectfully requested the county continue contributing funding.
As of the first of many work sessions in the county budget process, both organizations’ funding from the county would be cut entirely. In FY 2009, the county budget included $7,500 for the James Madison Museum and $4,500 for the Arts Center in Orange.

Electoral board
Marty Caldwell, secretary of the Orange County Electoral Board presented to supervisors a request to fund a new election management officer position to offset the workload of electoral board members and staff at the Orange County Registrar’s Office, particularly during election years. Additionally, Caldwell said the members of the electoral board had worked far beyond their job descriptions during recent elections, and was now “unwilling to stick it out any longer.“
Orange County Board of Supervisors Chairman Lee Frame said he wasn’t ready to make a decision yet on funding a new position, but told Caldwell her request would be considered as county officials deliberated the FY 2010 budget. (The proposed budget includes a significant number of layoffs, eliminated and downsized county government positions.)

PetSmart Charities
Orange County Animal Shelter Director Beth Hamilton scored one for the county’s homeless cats and dogs recently. Hamilton was unable to attend the board of supervisors meeting, but in her absence, she was complimented and congratulated for successfully securing a $16,290 grant from PetSmart charities. The money will be used for much-needed shelter repair and maintenance projects.

Advertising Agenda
Soon, Review readers won’t find Orange County public meeting dates and information advertised. They’ll have to check online or in person at public libraries or the county administration building. Rolfe said the tab for running agendas in the Review last year was $4,957.80 on agenda advertisements. By law, the county has to advertise for public hearings, but not agendas. Concerned citizens can sign up to be added to an existing list of recipients of electronic copies of the agenda recipients, Rolfe said.
District 4 Supervisor Teri Pace said she was concerned that meeting information would become inaccessible to people without internet access.
“There’s a lot of people who don’t have e-mail,“ she said.
Rolfe said those individuals could gain access to the internet on free public computers at any of the county’s three libraries, or they could request a hard copy from county administration.

Planning commission composition
There may be changes to how the Orange County Planning Commission seats are filled, how long terms last and even the number of planning commissioners-but things won’t change anytime soon. District 2 Supervisor Zack Burkett said fewer planning commission members could make for a more organized effort overall.
“I would like to see the size of the planning commission come down,“ Burkett said. “I think in general large committees are not as effective as small ones.“
District 3 Supervisor Teel Goodwin said there weren’t too many cooks spoiling the broth, but reorganization could be warranted.
“I would like to see them realigned…,“ Goodwin began.
“…So that they are appointed consistent with the term of their appointing supervisor,“ Frame finished.
“I think we could get more use from the planning commission if we were more aligned with them,“ Burkett said.
Frame, who served on the planning commission before winning the District 5 supervisors’ seat, said his preference was to leave the commission’s composition as it is.
“The planning commission is supposed to have a small degree of independence and I think we should allow that independence,“ he concluded.
Whether the planning commission is restructured or not, supervisors decided, will have to wait while officials tend to the budget. They will revisit the issue once the budget has been dissected, deliberated and adopted in April.