Voter Attitudes on Slow-Growth Options Studied

The developer of the Rancho Santa Margarita planned community in south Orange County is paying a Santa Monica-based political consulting firm to find out whether voters will accept an alternative to a controversial, countywide slow-growth proposal.

Santa Margarita Co. Vice President Donald Moe acknowledged Thursday that a firm called First Tuesday is doing research on voter attitudes toward the proposed initiative and that a written poll prepared by a Phoenix firm was part of that research.

First Tuesday was the primary consulting firm in slow-growth candidate Ruth Galanter’s successful, anti-developer campaign for the Los Angeles City Council. She defeated incumbent Pat Russell on June 2.

The poll prepared for the Santa Margarita Co. asks whether the person being surveyed would vote for or against the proposed slow-growth initiative unveiled last Saturday by a citizens group called Orange County Tomorrow. The measure would ban construction of major projects except where traffic moves at an average rush-hour speed of at least 30 to 35 m.p.h.

Initiative sponsors are waiting out a mandatory 21-day period for public comment before gathering the 66,000 signatures needed to qualify the measure for the June, 1988, countywide ballot. Separate petition drives are planned for each of the county’s 26 cities.

The Santa Margarita Co. poll asks whether the person being surveyed would vote for an alternative to the proposal and lists these three possibilities:

- Establishing a special trust fund for highway construction.

- Simply approving the county’s transportation plans.

- Limiting “building growth.”

Jeff Robinson of First Tuesday said Thursday that he would not comment on the survey or his client, “in order to protect the integrity of the research.”

But Moe denied statements by a source close to the Phoenix polling firm that the survey is part of an effort to launch a campaign to defeat the Orange County Tomorrow initiative.

Traditionally, developers have supported rival ballot measures in largely unsuccessful attempts to divert support from slow-growth initiatives.

‘Have Not Taken Position’

Last year, developers affected by a San Clemente slow-growth initiative financed a campaign on behalf of a countermeasure but lost. Since then, developers have filed lawsuits attempting to nullify the growth limit that was approved by San Clemente voters.

“We have not taken a position on the initiative,” Moe said of the Orange County Tomorrow proposal. “We have been researching just to understand the market and the political environment. . . . We’re just trying to help find solutions to the traffic problem, like everyone else.

“I’d hate to think that it would result in a counterinitiative because that would consume a lot of energy.”

Asked what his company will do if the poll shows that voters prefer an alternative to the slow-growth measure, such as establishment of a special trust fund for highway construction, Moe said:

“We’d have to cross that bridge if (the survey) said that. . . . Hopefully somebody could take it and do something with it without having to run an initiative.”

Moe said the questions about the trust fund and the other possibilities were suggested by the Phoenix firm that drafted the poll as a “classic research technique” to test voter sentiment. He said specifics of how a trust fund or other alternative would work have not been “thought out.”

Surprised by Decision

San Juan Capistrano rancher Tom Rogers, co-founder of Orange County Tomorrow, said the Santa Margarita Co.’s decision to commission a poll surprised him.

“On one hand I would think that it shows once again the concern that the developers have about our initiative,” said Rogers. “But I’m very surprised that one developer would split himself off from other people involved in the equation and go their own way. . . . Maybe they will all go off in different directions and fight each other.”

It is not the first time a developer has surveyed public attitudes about growth in Orange County.

The Irvine Co. commissioned a poll conducted earlier this year that raises growth issues in addition to other matters, such as the political futures of Irvine politicians. However, the firm has insisted that the survey is an internal company matter and has refused to discuss it.

County officials still are analyzing the Orange County Tomorrow slow-growth initiative before deciding what action to take, if any. County supervisors, however, have criticized the initiative’s traffic limits as unworkable.