Supervisor: Stop voluntary services

Though a recent report states that the county is between a rock and a hard place when it comes to funding the Orange County Sheriff’s Harbor Patrol, some residents and business owners are demanding they find a way out.

During the Orange County Board of Supervisors’ meeting earlier this week, county officials, including Sheriff Sandra Hutchens, said harbor patrol staffing is minimal.

According to a memo by a county task force charged with looking into funding matters, staff levels have remained the same for nearly 30 years at the harbor patrol, but costs have substantially increased.

At the meeting Tuesday, Supervisor Chris Norby emphasized that voluntary services performed by sheriff’s deputies in Newport Beach and Huntington Beach harbors should be stopped.

Supervisor John Moorlach, who had staff on the task force, echoed Hutchens’ argument that the services aren’t the issue for funding with the patrol, it’s staffing. Each said that given state and county laws about patrolling the coastline and the tidelands in the Back Bay, which is unincorporated land, requires the same staffing they have now.

Norby said he simply wants the funding for the county harbor patrol to stop flowing through the county park funds, which came thanks to a resolution in 1975. The county cannot, however, force either Newport Beach or Huntington Beach to pay for the services themselves.

More than a dozen members of the public spoke at the meeting, many arguing on behalf of boat-towing companies. They argued that the patrol is wasting time and money towing boats in nonemergency situations.

John McCullough, a Newport Beach business owner, suggested that the harbor patrol follow the Coast Guard’s lead and tow boats only in emergency situations. In the end, county officials received and filed the task force’s report and sent it to the county auditor, who is expected to evaluate the harbor patrol’s services and see where reductions can be made.