THE POLITICAL LANDSCAPE:

Orange County Supervisor Chris Norby nearly sunk an agreement earlier this week that would provide training to Harbor Patrol personnel on how to handle marine fires.

Norby first voted against paying for the $23,200 training sessions with county money and said the county should not pay for harbor security in cities like Newport and Huntington.

“The county should no more pay for these harbors than it should pay for Disneyland,” Norby said.

Supervisor Bill Campbell was traveling, and Supervisor Patricia Bates was involved in a car accident on her way to the board’s regular meeting Tuesday. With only three supervisors at the meeting, Norby voted down the training classes with his dissenting vote.

“This is your day, you can kill this baby,” Chairman John Moorlach said to Norby.

Norby switched his vote at the last minute to approve the training, which would have passed at the board’s next meeting in two weeks with all members present, Moorlach said. But the supervisor vowed to continue looking for ways to make the cities pay for their own harbor patrols. He said he plans to raise the issue again.

“I don’t think it’s responsible to make taxpayers pay for this,” Norby said.

PROP 1-A OK FOR NOW

Local budget officials are crossing their fingers that Sacramento’s budget woes won’t prompt a rescinding of Proposition 1A, an initiative that prevents the capital from borrowing more than 8% of local revenues to balance the books.

Gov. Schwarzenegger’s plans don’t include any such maneuvers, though a declaration by the governor and a supermajority vote of the legislature could prompt a temporary lifting of the proposition — invoking unwanted flashbacks to 2003, when the state took .25% of local retail taxes for its own coffers, while returning the money without interest the following year.

“Certainly it worries me,” Costa Mesa’s Director of Finance Marc Puckett said. “It creates uncertainty in our budget and makes it more difficult to balance with that uncertainty hanging out there, based on what the state may do in terms of cutting other resources we rely on.

“At this point, my attention is focused on what’s developing in Sacramento, but I’m not going to say that I’m worried or not worried. Let’s just say I’ll breathe a sigh of relief when they adopt their budget.”

Frank Kim, director of the Orange County Budget Office, is slightly more confident that the state legislature wouldn’t swoop in for local cash.

“I can’t guarantee one way or another what’s going to happen, but since it’s not in the governor’s proposal, all we can do is monitor what is happening in Sacramento,” he said. “I don’t believe at this point that the state would pull that trigger.”

The Democratic legislative majority is expected to produce a counter proposal to Schwarzenegger’s Jan. 10 budget proposal sometime in May.

MOORLACH’S NOT PICKING FAVORITES

Chairman John Moorlach says he has no comment on whether he’d like to see acting Sheriff Jack Anderson permanently replace predecessor Michael Carona, who left the office this week to prepare his defense against federal corruption charges. But Moorlach acknowledged he’d “absolutely” be open to someone else.

“I think one of the issues that we will be concerned about is the corporate culture, and when you have someone a little more independent and outspoken like [former Assistant Sheriff] Dan Martini terminated in order to make some of these moves, I think that creates a sense of serious concern by the board members,” he said. “We’ll just have to factor that in [to our decision].”

Carona’s last-minute shuffles prior to his resignation included demoting former Undersheriff Jo Ann Galisky to assistant sheriff, and endorsing Anderson as his replacement. Martini lost his position in the pecking-order shuffle.

Law dictates that, in the event of a vacancy in a county sheriff’s office, the undersheriff takes his or her place until county officials select a replacement. In the absence of an undersheriff, the assistant sheriff is next in line.

Unfortunately, large counties like Orange tend to have multiple assistant sheriffs. Thus, it was Anderson’s status as Carona’s de facto chief of staff that made him the natural choice, Moorlach said.

“I said, ‘Look, chief of staff seems like the strongest title here, let’s move on,’ ” he said. “Let’s not get into any nitpick war here over which one of the four [assistant sheriffs] should be the sheriff.”

Moorlach said he has not heard any gripes from the other assistant sheriffs about the decision.

BRIANNA BAILEY may be reached at (714) 966-4625 or at [email protected]. CHRIS CAESAR may be reached at (714) 966-4626 or at [email protected].