Irvine Citizens Group Opens Campaign to Force Referendum on Freeway Fees

An Irvine citizens group on Tuesday launched a referendum campaign after the Irvine City Council gave final approval to a $104-million developer fee program to finance three new freeways.

A spokesman for the Committee of 7,000, which opposes the freeway fees, said the group will try to collect 6,000 signatures in the next 30 days to force a citywide vote on the issue.

“They all keep saying this program is the best thing that ever happened to the city of Irvine. I’d like to give them a chance to prove that and hear what the voters have to say,” said William Speros, chairman of the committee.

Newly seated Councilman Ray Catalano joined Councilman Larry Agran in opposing the fee program, which was approved by a 3-2 vote.

Explains Position

Catalano said he opposed the program because it requires the city to collect fees for all three freeways, when only the Eastern freeway, which will clear the way for completion of the Irvine Business Complex, really benefits Irvine.

“It’s like buying tomatoes in Syracuse. . . . You have to buy them in a package. Usually you get one very attractive, ripe tomato, you get one miserable rotten tomato and you get one you’re not sure about,” said Catalano.

“I don’t see any reason for those of us in Southern California to vote for Syracuse tomatoes, and I’m going to vote against it,” he said.

Agran, until now the only opponent of the fees on the council, said he would sign the referendum petition and begin soliciting signatures himself.

“This whole issue really isn’t about freeways, and it isn’t about transportation and our respective views on that,” Agran said. “In the end, what this whole thing is about is the right to vote, the right to be heard on matters of overriding concern to the city’s future.”

Majority Position

But members of the council majority argued that the city must join the fee program to have a voice in the design and routing of the proposed freeways, which Mayor David Baker said would take future traffic “around, rather than through,” Irvine.

“Mr. Agran said the real issue is the right to vote,” said Councilwoman Barbara Wiener. “I say the issue is leadership. . . . We have traffic congestion. It is growing; it is going to get worse unless the leadership of this council does something about it.”

The developer fee program would raise $411 million countywide to finance about half the cost of the proposed Foothill, Eastern and San Juaquin Hills freeways in south Orange County.

Fees would average about $1,000 for each new home and $2 per square foot for all new commercial construction within several miles of the new freeways.

Irvine alone would generate about a fourth of all fees collected under the program.

The Committee of 7,000 earlier this year collected signatures from 22% of Irvine’s registered voters on an initiative that would require voter approval for any new fees to finance roads or freeways.

Measure Rejected

A Superior Court judge rejected the ballot measure, however, upholding a challenge from a coalition of development industries and business groups who argued that local activist organizations should not be allowed to block regional transportation facilities.

The committee has appealed that decision, and Speros said Tuesday he expects the referendum issues eventually will be decided by the courts as well.

The Center for Law and the Public Interest, a Los Angeles based nonprofit law firm, is representing the committee because of the implications for ballot initiatives throughout California.

The City Council voted in closed session Tuesday to take a neutral position on the lawsuit, urging a rapid decision from the appellate court.

To qualify the referendum for the ballot, committee members must collect signatures from 10% of Irvine’s registered voters, or about 4,800 signatures, within the next 30 days.

Speros said the committee has about about 120 volunteers.