July 2, 1999

Fairfield's late, great gadfly, Don Dowling, would've been proud of at least one Solano County supervisor this week. The garrulous Mr. Dowling, who was a county risk manager for several years, told many tales of futile attempts to save taxpayers' money.

One night when riding to a meeting with a board member, he told the fellow about $10,000 in costs he'd managed to spare the county. While in session, the guy led a vote to grant a new organization $10,000 - on its first request. The ride home was rather long.

But now Don is smiling down from heaven on Supervisor Duane Kromm for exercising prudence during the annual hearings for the budget, which happens to be flush from California's booming economy. Mr. Kromm spoke against funding a Child Protective Services' Alternative Response Team until the agency demonstrates "significant improvement" on its troubling 1998 audit and provides information about recommended changes.

If that wasn't enough, he went on to push past Supervisor Barbara Kondylis' proclivity for "spending that money where it's needed." Mr. Kromm reminded the board that, "One of the roles we play here is to look long-term." In Monday's vote, it was 4-1 to save 3 percent of the general fund in reserve, bringing the county's cushion to $8.3 million. And they'll try to bank any leftover funding at the end of the year. Be still my fiscally conservative heart.

It made my week, and I rarely agree with Mr. Kromm philosophically. He's quite the liberal Democrat, which places us light years apart in our view of government's role. But his budgetary stand prompted a new perspective. Big government savings could come out of a combined force of conservationists and true conservatives, who, by the way, are not necessarily Republicans.

Reform could come from the two groups' common goal to cut waste and not give financial favors to business. Mr. Kromm and his ilk lose fiscally conservative Libertarians like me in using public funds to discourage development, but our two factions can agree that we have to stop wasting resources and start holding public bureaucracies accountable for spending and monetary requests.

Increasingly, politics is not about Democrats vs. Republicans, but just holding the line against government growth.

© 1999 Cynthia Hahn