{"id":385614,"date":"2026-07-04T01:08:15","date_gmt":"2026-07-04T01:08:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/385614\/"},"modified":"2026-07-04T01:08:15","modified_gmt":"2026-07-04T01:08:15","slug":"who-does-local-government-work-for-o-c-residents-polled","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/385614\/","title":{"rendered":"Who does local government work for? O.C. residents polled"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

A new poll suggests that Orange County residents\u2019 trust in local government hasn\u2019t tanked, but people don\u2019t feel that officials prioritize them.<\/p>\n

\u201cTrust Divided<\/a>,\u201d a UC Irvine School of Ecology survey of about 1,200 residents, found that 42% of respondents trust county government in the wake of former O.C. Supervisor Andrew Do\u2019s bribery conviction<\/a> almost two years ago. <\/p>\n

In the report released on Tuesday, four in 10 residents expressed trust in their city governments.<\/p>\n

The federal government remained more untrustworthy among county residents, with only 25% expressing confidence in it.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf we\u2019re grading on a curve, then Orange County officials can feel pretty good about the county, especially against other forms of government,\u201d said Jon Gould, the School of Social Ecology\u2019s dean, \u201cbut if we\u2019re just doing an absolute grading scale, then they\u2019re not getting a passing grade yet.\u201d<\/p>\n

After Do\u2019s bribery conviction, 36% percent of respondents believed that most or at least half of the people running county government are corrupt. The same percentage believe that only a few or none are corrupt.<\/p>\n

Half of respondents agree that the county government is run to benefit a few big interests.<\/p>\n

Only 23% believe it works on behalf of average people.<\/p>\n

Gould deemed the findings to be a bit of a Rorschach test as the skepticism about who county government works for cuts across party lines with a few percentage points separating Republicans, Democrats and independents on the question.<\/p>\n

What interests are fueling the cynicism also aren\u2019t defined.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe bigger problem here for the county isn\u2019t the corruption question,\u201d he said, \u201cit\u2019s whether the government works for average people or does it work for big interests, and that\u2019s where I think there is greater cause for concern if I were an elected official.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"The <\/p>\n

The UCI-OC poll found that half of survey respondents believe Orange County is run to benefit big interests.<\/p>\n

(Screenshot by Gabriel San Rom\u00e1n)<\/p>\n

While skepticism about who county government works for is a relatively shared perspective, what to do about it is skewed along party lines.<\/p>\n

In 2022, Democrats secured a slim 3-2 majority<\/a> on the board for the first time in decades. Whether or not that majority holds will be determined by voters in the midterm election. <\/p>\n

Nearly 60% of Democrats surveyed favor expanding the number of seats on the Orange County Board of Supervisors and making the county\u2019s chief executive an elected position, while less than half of Republicans and independents support such reforms.<\/p>\n

The survey\u2019s findings follow a recent O.C. grand jury report<\/a> that recommended giving supervisors the power to remove elected county officials for misconduct and supported the treasurer-tax collector transitioning to an appointed position.<\/p>\n

Jurors published their report after the June primary when voters overwhelmingly reelected Assessor Claude Parrish and Treasurer-Tax Collector Shari Freidenrich despite being the subjects of critical H.R. reports in recent years.<\/p>\n

The arm of government that enjoys the most support remains law enforcement, but that opinion is sharply divided along racial and ethnic lines. Whites express trust in the police \u201calways or most of the time,\u201d while 61% of Asian Americans and only 47% of Latinos surveyed similarly trust cops.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s not a new finding anywhere in America,\u201d Gould said. \u201cThat\u2019s been true for decades.\u201d<\/p>\n

There\u2019s also a generational divide where millennials and Gen Z are more likely to be skeptical of police than Gen X, boomers and the silent generation. But younger demographics displayed a higher trust in community organizations, meaning cynicism isn\u2019t divorcing them from civic life.<\/p>\n

The generation divide could also tip the county from its purple politics to being as solidly blue as other Democratic strongholds in the state.<\/p>\n

\u201cWill those young people stay in Orange County, or will they leave?\u201d Gould asks. \u201cWill their attitudes remain the same? Will they vote at the same percentages as people older than them? If they stay, their attitudes stay the same and they vote, this place will look blue very quickly.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A new poll suggests that Orange County residents\u2019 trust in local government hasn\u2019t tanked, but people don\u2019t feel…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":385615,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[163,165,164,963,166,1751,10408,68239,114546,155599,155600,155601,592,16975,1748,65082,52943,1522],"class_list":["post-385614","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-anaheim","tag-anaheim","tag-anaheim-headlines","tag-anaheim-news","tag-city-government","tag-county","tag-democrats","tag-finding","tag-independent","tag-jon-gould","tag-least-half","tag-o-c-resident","tag-orange-county-board","tag-people","tag-position","tag-republicans","tag-treasurer-tax-collector","tag-trust","tag-voter"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/385614","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=385614"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/385614\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/385615"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=385614"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=385614"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=385614"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}