Would Raise $25 Million a Year : Unique Freeway Agency Urged for Orange County

Creation of a new Orange County Freeway Authority, the first of its kind in the state and possibly the nation, was proposed Monday by the county Transportation Commission as a way to generate more revenue for financially troubled freeway projects.

Commission member James Roosevelt made the proposal as he ended a one-year term as the panel’s chairman. The commission then voted to recommend that creation of the new authority be put before voters in November. It also asked that the commission director study problems the proposal might face and report back in two weeks.

Noting that the county had failed to persuade the Legislature to shift some sales tax revenue to transportation projects, Roosevelt said, “We can take our destiny into our own hands by using a share of the growth in property tax revenues to build new lanes on our existing freeways.”

The proposed agency would raise about $25 million a year, which would be added to a similar amount spent annually by Caltrans in Orange County. The agency would be composed of the current Transportation Commission but with its members sitting as a separate entity. It would raise money by taxing the amount a property has increased in value due to new development or redevelopment.

City redevelopment agencies operate the same way. They collect a share of the property tax increase that results when a neighborhood is upgraded.

County officials cautioned that the Board of Supervisors must approve the ballot initiative in early August if it is to get on the November ballot without petitions signed by thousands of voters. However, Tom Daly, aide to Board of Supervisors Chairman Ralph B. Clark, said Clark is behind the proposal “100%” and anticipates little or no board opposition.

The proposed ballot measure already has the support of three out of the five county supervisors, including Clark, Harriett Wieder and Thomas F. Riley. Wieder became the county transportation panel’s chairman Monday for the 1986-87 fiscal year; Riley is also a panel member. Supervisor Roger R. Stanton said he needed more details before taking a position on the proposal.

However, Supervisor Bruce Nestande, a member of the California Transportation Commission, said of the proposed freeway authority: “I don’t think it’s practical.”

Nestande said it’s doubtful that such an authority could operate without legislation in Sacramento, and state lawmakers “have been tightening down” on redevelopment activity and financing schemes.

Also, he said he doesn’t believe that cities would want a new agency to take money “out of their own backyard” for big freeway projects when they’re having trouble paying for the repair of potholes on local streets.

New legislation might be required to legally permit the new agency to use the same taxing authority as city redevelopment agencies, according to OCTC Executive Director Stan Oftelie. He will report back to the commission in two weeks after researching the feasibility of Roosevelt’s proposal.

State Sen. John Seymour (R-Anaheim), a member of the Senate Transportation Committee, was on vacation Monday and could not be reached for comment. But Sen. Marian Bergeson (R-Newport Beach), who chairs the Senate Local Government Committee, was cautious in her appraisal of the proposed freeway authority.

“I applaud their search for innovative ideas,” Bergeson said of Roosevelt and his fellow commission members. “But the Legislature recently redefined redevelopment to apply only to blighted areas, and in the case of using incremental value taxing authority, you’re talking about other services that would not get all of the increased funding that they were expecting because they would be sharing it with a new entity. . . . You get into turf battles.” And that, said Bergeson, creates a hostile political climate in Sacramento.

Although Orange County recently has been receiving its “fair share” of state transportation funds, according to county officials, the need for local freeway improvements far outstrips available revenue.

For example, Oftelie said the highest priority for a new freeway authority would be the widening of the Santa Ana Freeway from the Los Angeles County border to the San Diego Freeway in Irvine.

Although a new freeway authority would be able to raise only a small fraction of the project’s $1-billion price tag, Oftelie said, that would help persuade state and federal officials to also give the project a high priority.

“Local money attracts state money,” Oftelie said.

Indeed, the state Transportation Commission looks for projects that are ready to go and involve local funding commitments. But Nestande, former chairman of the state panel, warned that this doesn’t mean that they automatically get more money from Sacramento.

“We’re not going to go out there and throw them lots of dollars, because we can’t,” Nestande said. “Where it may help is in determining who gets (money) first.”

If created, the new Orange County Freeway Authority would be the latest in the county’s innovative efforts at freeway financing. The county previously created two joint powers authorities, in which 10 cities and representatives from the Board of Supervisors collect developer fees for three planned freeways in what are known as the San Joaquin Hills, Eastern and Foothill transportation corridors.

The county is also studying creation of so-called benefit assessment districts to help finance transit improvements elsewhere in the county. Such districts would levy assessments against property owners for local improvements in much the same way that a lighting district does.