ORANGE COUNTY PERSPECTIVE : Paying a Fair Share

There’s good news and bad news in Huntington Beach these days. On the up side, the city has a new administrative team in place that is scouring procedures to make sure the city is operating at top efficiency. That’s especially important because the city has had to cut expenses and search for new revenue in the face of a $5.5-million shortfall in the 1992-93 budget, which now has been closed.

On the down side, the city’s self-examination has brought to light a situation in which the city failed to collect hundreds of thousands of dollars in in-lieu fees for park and recreation purposes from several developers. Councilwoman Grace Winchell could not have put it better: “The city turns off customers’ water for a $50 bill (that’s not paid) but lets developer fees in the hundreds of dollars slip through the crack. This is very sloppy.”

Winchell also went on to praise two of the city’s new administrators, City Administrator Michael T. Uberuaga and Assistant City Administrator Ray Silver, for revamping city procedures on permits and regulations. She’s right about that--it is good that the city uncovered for itself something that went awry. The next step is for the city to move quickly both to collect the fees and to make sure that in the future developers aren’t allowed to get away without paying them.

To that end, an outside audit of the city’s regulatory and permit process has been proposed. The City Council should endorse the audit at its meeting Monday.

One of the developers involved, Pacific Coast Homes, has said that it donated more land than required on a previous development, which may obviate the need for paying in-lieu fees totaling more than $500,000. Confusion over what is owed should be cleared up as soon as possible. However, since 1989, four other developers apparently have not paid about $220,000 in fees.

Huntington Beach is a city that grew up fast and now is rapidly coming up to speed on a number of fronts. That’s to the good. But part of growing up involves coming to terms with problems, learning from mistakes and holding developers to their commitments.