ORANGE : Plan to Appoint Key Posts Put on Ballot

City officials are hoping the third time will be a charm for a ballot measure that would make the positions of treasurer and clerk appointed rather than elected.

Voters defeated similar proposals in 1990 and 1992. But City Council members said last year’s Orange County bankruptcy may have convinced the public that the change, which they say would give the council more direct control of the two offices, would be wise.

“You can have inside oversight committees and outside oversight committees, but when you get right down to it, the elected treasurer is the only one who has the ability and the authority to invest city funds,� Mayor Joanne Coontz said at Tuesday’s council meeting.

The council voted unanimously to put the measure on the March ballot, despite opposition from a local watchdog group, which wanted to delay the vote.

“Careful scrutiny of such a significant transfer of authority from the public to a government body should not be done in haste,� Carole Walters, president of the Orange Taxpayers Assn., said in a prepared statement.

How to choose a city treasurer became an issue after the December, 1994, bankruptcy when a consulting attorney blamed then-Treasurer Mark Weiss for failing to reduce the city’s exposure to potential losses in the county investment pool, which collapsed.

Weiss--who suffered from a chronic illness and was frequently absent from his office--had reduced the city’s pool investment to $28 million from $33 million when the bankruptcy hit, but he had not complied with an investment-committee recommendation to reduce the amount to $20 million.