Transit Tax Decision Won’t Be Made Soon Despite Poll Results

Orange County officials said Friday that any decision to seek voter approval of a tax for transportation projects is several months to a year away despite poll results that show 51% of county residents favor a half-cent tax.

There is no consensus yet on what kind of spending plan to put on the ballot, officials said.

The Orange County Transportation Coalition, a volunteer business group, said Friday that previously secret results of a countywide poll in September showed a 51% majority favoring a half-cent tax, with support climbing to 60% if the tax revenue is earmarked for widening the Santa Ana Freeway.

The tax issue was among 20 questions the coalition paid to include in the Orange County Annual Survey directed by UC Irvine professor Mark Baldassare. Survey results, which showed that most residents are pessimistic about growth, traffic and the quality of life in the county, were released last week. But some poll sponsors, such as the coalition, withheld information about some results because the information was considered proprietary or required additional analysis.

The survey involved telephone interviews of 1,010 people and has a margin of error of 3%.

“It’s encouraging, but I don’t know if we’ll go for a tax measure in 1988 or not,” Supervisor Thomas F. Riley said of the poll results. “There are some who say public sentiment is still in doubt. Also, before there’s any decision to seek a public vote, we’d have to be assured that there’s no doubt in people’s minds about how the money will be spent and for how long.”

Riley, a member of the Orange County Transportation Commission, was a strong supporter of Proposition A, a proposed 1-cent sales tax that was defeated overwhelmingly by county voters in June, 1984.

Part of the problem, Riley and others said Friday, is that the survey is a poll of residents, only some of whom vote. The proportion of respondents who are registered to vote was unavailable. Baldassare could not be reached for comment.

Supervisor Harriett M. Wieder recently conducted a survey of residents in her district that also showed majority support for a sales tax to help relieve traffic, said Stan Oftelie, executive director of the Orange County Transportation Commission. Wieder could not be reached for comment.

Oftelie said he, too, is encouraged by such polls, but added that the commission’s actions are “driven by things other than the Orange County Annual Survey.”

The sales tax issue is “a three-legged stool at this point,” Oftelie said. “The League of Cities has to come to us with a consensus on the cities’ road needs, the Board of Supervisors has to ask us to begin looking at it, and a plan (on how to spend tax revenue) has to be developed.”

Nancy Coss-Fitzwater, an Irvine Co. representative to the Transportation Coalition, said Friday she doesn’t see much movement by the Board of Supervisors to call for a sales tax vote.

“The (survey) results relating to the sales tax are not particularly revealing, in my opinion,” she said. “They don’t give you a lot of guidance on whether it’s advisable to proceed.”

Some key decision-makers, Coss-Fitzwater said, would like stronger support than a 51% majority.

“This was not a political poll,” she said. “We asked the question from a strictly educational point of view.”

The coalition will release results on other questions in a few weeks, members said Friday. Baldassare is scheduled to present the findings to the county Transportation Commission on Jan. 11.

Under state law, a local sales tax for transportation projects can be imposed when the Board of Supervisors votes to create a new transportation authority or designates the Transportation Commission to act in that capacity. The authority in turn would develop a spending plan and call for an election.

Half-cent measures recently have been approved by voters in Santa Clara, Alameda, Fresno and San Diego counties, but voters in Contra Costa, Tuolumne and San Bernardino counties have rejected them.

Former Supervisor Bruce Nestande, a member of the California Transportation Commission, said Friday that Orange County officials should put a sales tax measure on the ballot every two years until it passes.

“We need it,” Nestande said, “and eventually people will see that, and it will pass.”