Ballot Initiatives in 11 Cities Are Vowed to Block 3 Freeways

Encouraged by a California Supreme Court decision, a longtime freeway opponent vowed Friday to put initiatives on the ballot in 11 Orange County cities in a bid to block construction of three major thoroughfares.

“We’re going to put it on the ballot in every city, city by city if we have to, hopefully as soon as November,” said Tom Rogers, a San Juan Capistrano rancher and former county Republican chairman.

Rogers, a co-founder of Orange County Tomorrow, a group that favors growth limits, was reacting to a decision Thursday by the court that decided to grant a group of Irvine residents a hearing on their attempt to force a public vote on the city’s participation in the financing of the three freeway projects.

The hearing, not yet scheduled, was sought by the Committee of Seven Thousand, an Irvine citizens group that last year collected more than 6,000 signatures seeking to put the issue on the ballot.

Two lower courts blocked the initiative, ruling that construction of the planned freeways is a statewide issue too great to be decided by voters within a single city, especially since their elected representatives had a say in the freeway financing program.

The proposed freeways are the so-called Eastern, Foothill and San Joaquin Hills transportation corridors, with a combined $1-billion price tag. After county voters in 1984 rejected a proposed 1% sales tax increase to fund freeway construction, the state Legislature passed a law allowing local governments to impose fees on developers to pay for highway and bridge construction.

The fee program, which is collecting about $400,000 a month, involves city officials because they have the authority under state law to impose the fees within city boundaries. The Orange County Board of Supervisors has approved the fees for the county’s unincorporated areas.

Irvine, which would include a major portion of each of the three planned freeways, generates about a fourth of the program’s revenue. The 10 other cities that participate are Yorba Linda, Anaheim, Santa Ana, San Juan Capistrano, San Clemente, Tustin, Orange, Huntington Beach, Costa Mesa and Newport Beach. Rogers suggested that ballot measures protesting the freeway construction should also be placed before the voters in those cities.

Laguna Beach, which opposes the San Joaquin Hills freeway, has refused to join the program.

The Committee of Seven Thousand has argued that voters should be given a chance to reverse their city councils’ decision to participate in the fee program, as happens in some other situations where citizens collect enough signatures to force a city issue on the ballot.

But Rogers’ enthusiasm for elections in each of the 10 fee program cities by November may be misplaced, according to some county officials. For one thing, the Supreme Court may take months to rule on the merits of the Irvine case, which would delay ballot measures until 1987 or 1988. Also, a decision by voters not to participate in the development fee program would not bar freeway construction, officials said.

“I can’t give you a damage assessment based on Irvine voting against participation,” said Stan Oftelie, executive director of the Orange County Transportation Commission. “It wouldn’t be good. But we would find a different funding source.”

Oftelie said the program is expected to finance only half of the construction costs of the three freeways, so officials have already initiated studies of other revenue sources, including toll roads.

No Construction Scheduled

So far, about $3 million has been spent on route and interchange alignment studies for the three thoroughfares, according to county officials. No construction is under way or even scheduled.

“There are other ways to build freeways,” said county Supervisor Bruce Nestande, who also is chairman of the state Transportation Commission, which oversees the California Transportation Department. “But they are more costly and they take longer. . . . I believe that those roads (freeways) are going to be built, even if we have to do it through the STIP (State Transportation Improvement Program). There would be lengthy delays, like (those which) occurred with the Century Freeway in Los Angeles.

“But they would be built, despite objections from Irvine. It (challenging the fee program) absolutely backfires on the people who don’t want any more freeways.”

Nestande said the Transportation Commission can “arbitrarily come in and hold their hearings and select routes and Irvine can’t do much of anything about it. I think it’s a much more responsible process when it’s done locally (through the development fee program).”

Disturbed by Court Action

Ralph B. Clark, chairman of the Board of Supervisors, said through an aide Friday that he is “quite disturbed” by the Supreme Court’s decision to hear the Irvine case.

He said the fee program had been “carefully designed to solve Orange County’s biggest problem (traffic congestion).”

However, Irvine City Councilman Larry Agran contended that “local citizens must have some say in the construction financing of massive freeway systems that will forever affect their communities. Local citizens have the biggest stake of anyone in the solution of local transportation problems.”

“If they can’t be persuaded to finance new freeway construction,” Agran added, “then probably those freeways ought not to be built. . . . Most people are fairly discerning. They will see the need for some road construction, but they don’t want some bureaucrats telling them what they’ve got to have.”

Officials expect the Supreme Court to focus on whether the Committee of Seven Thousand was wrongfully denied a chance to put an initiative on the ballot, rather than on the merits of the development fee program.