ORANGE COUNTY PERSPECTIVE : How Generosity Compromises Policy

While all eyes were on Supervisor Don R. Roth’s abstention on a vote this week affecting a political supporter, the former Anaheim mayor’s other abstention that day was a telling tale all its own. It’s about how a city risks compromising its best interests through well-intentioned goodwill.

Roth, in his new, self-styled “cautious approach” to participating when a Board of Supervisors vote might present a conflict for him, excused himself Tuesday from the balloting to restore a probation officer to the county payroll. The position was important to Anaheim; it was under discussion as part of an agreement with the city to combat gang activity.

A former mayor surely could be counted on to support a beleaguered city’s effort to crack down on gangs, couldn’t he? Since leaving the city office in 1987, Roth has been a reliable friend in a high place for Anaheim. Paradoxically, his dilemma on the probation officer position arose precisely because of cordiality extended to him by the city.

Roth is one of a number of former Anaheim officials who have lifetime passes to Anaheim-owned golf courses. As a result, between the spring of 1988 and October of this year, he didn’t have to pay $1,628 in greens and golf cart fees--no small amount.

Anaheim, a city awash in gifts, favors and political contributions, in the past never worried much about such conflicts. For example, the City Council’s longstanding practice of brokering free tickets to Disneyland was called off last spring only after the state Fair Political Practices Commission investigated. Developers for years have recognized that they needed to grease the wheels of Anaheim political campaigns with generous contributions if they wanted to do business in town.

But Roth’s golf pass has turned out to be a Catch-22 for Anaheim, and the city’s new mayor, Tom Daly, recognized immediately how the city might be defeating its own purposes. He saw that there might be voting problems for the county supervisor on other, future issues affecting Anaheim. Wisely, he plans to discuss the golf-pass policy with the city attorney.

The city should not grant such special favors at all. The best reason for Anaheim’s practitioners of Realpolitik is that goodwill can backfire once the players are compelled to weigh the ethics. Even in a city where reform comes slowly, that’s something they should understand.

It would be ironic if Roth’s abstention somehow led Anaheim to rein in the freebies and if it generated attitude adjustment under the prevailing climate of largess. Roth himself is being investigated for receiving trips and other gifts.

At least his abstention has officials pondering ethics in his old stomping grounds. That’s a start.