Roth Says It’s Time for New Faces on Air Quality Panel

Saying he was looking toward “new horizons,” Supervisor-elect Don R. Roth explained Friday why he resigned from the board of the South Coast Air Quality Management District after serving eight years, the last four as chairman.

“It’s time for new ideas and new people” to get involved in air quality, said Roth, who will be sworn in as an Orange County supervisor Jan. 5. Roth said he wants to work on transportation issues--though he conceded that, as “the new kid on the block” in county government, “I might end up in charge of the broom closet.”

Roth’s departure from the 14-member board comes as the air quality district faces its toughest scrutiny in 10 years. The district, which covers Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside and San Bernardino counties, does not expect to meet federal clean air standards by a December, 1987, deadline. Additionally, state Sen. Robert B. Presley (D-Riverside) recently announced that he will sponsor legislation this year “to totally revamp” the board.

Noting that he was not singling out Roth for criticism, Presley said that many board members’ attendance was poor, and “they don’t seem to be pressing hard enough in terms of cleaning up the air.”

Roth said that his Dec. 5 resignation had nothing to do with Presley’s inquiry. As mayor of Anaheim, Roth was elected to the air quality board by the mayors of Orange County’s 26 cities. If he had wanted to remain on the air quality board while serving as a county supervisor, he would have had to be appointed by the Board of Supervisors to replace one of the two supervisors currently on the air quality board.

In answer to Presley’s criticism, Roth said that the air quality board had “improved air quality considerably” in recent years. Orange County has not had a second-stage smog alert in more than a year, he noted.

Still, it is now increasingly difficult to regulate pollutants, Roth said. “Throughout the years, we’ve taken (regulated) all the easy areas in the industry, the stationary sources. Today, there are no more easy ones left.”

At the board’s last meeting, members spent several hours discussing whether to require new labels on paint cans because “we’ve run out of existing things to think about,” Roth said.

Roth said he understood environmental concerns but never wanted to impose unduly costly restrictions on businesses. “We want to see mountains every day. We want to see Catalina Island every day. But some of us are more conservative, and we’ve said, ‘What will this cost the industry?’ ” Roth said.

Roth’s fellow board members both praised and criticized him for balancing environmental concerns with business issues. Board Vice Chairman Thomas Heinsheimer called him “a voice of moderation.”

But Sabrina Schiller, a board member and longtime clean air activist who often disagreed with Roth, said she wished that he had supported “stronger air quality measures.” Both she and Presley noted that the board considered 90 recommendations for improving air quality this year but approved only 53 of them.

Roth said he was interested in a Presley plan to trim the 14-member board to seven or five members. That was a good idea, Roth said, because “in many instances, I have to run it like a kindergarten class. I have to ask people to raise their hands to speak. . . . The board is way too big.”

Although proud of his eight-year tenure, Roth said he realized most people had no idea what he had done.

“I look back on the months and years of meetings in El Monte--it’s been a drag,” he said. “If I leave my house early in the morning, I come back in bumper-to-bumper traffic--and nobody cares. I’ve spent six or seven hours at a district board meeting. I’ve worked right through lunch. And who in Orange County knows I’ve done that?”