Sales-Tax Idea Resurrected as County Seeks Transit Study

Almost four years after Orange County voters overwhelmingly rejected a 1% sales tax to pay for transportation projects, the Board of Supervisors voted Tuesday to investigate whether a similar plan might be successful in 1988.

The board unanimously called on the Orange County Transportation Commission to conduct a wide-ranging analysis of the county’s transportation needs while identifying all available financing sources and estimating the revenue that might be generated by a half-cent sales tax.

County officials believe that Proposition A, the 1984 sales-tax measure, was defeated--despite a well-financed campaign--partly because voters were not properly educated about the dire need for transportation funds in Orange County.

Public Attitude Analysis

Board Chairman Harriett M. Wieder, who proposed the study Tuesday, stressed that the commission’s report should include a thorough analysis of the public’s attitude toward a sales tax, probably through forums and public workshops conducted this spring.

“They didn’t even know what they were voting for (on Proposition A),” Wieder said. “I think this is the best form of government; the people are going to have a say.”

But Tom Rogers, a leader of the fight against Proposition A in 1984 and now a leader of the effort to get a proposed countywide slow-growth initiative on the June ballot, scoffed at the board’s idea Tuesday. He said there has not been a change in the public’s attitude and that he was certain another tax plan on the ballot would fail again.

“If they want to go through that exercise in futility again, let them do it,” he said. “We won’t beat them by 70%; we’ll beat them by 80%.”

Proposition A was rejected by 70.3% of the voters in an election with the lowest voter turnout in 40 years.

The transportation report requested Tuesday is expected to be presented to the Board of Supervisors by early summer.

To Reach Voters

To reach the ballot, the tax proposal would have to be adopted by the supervisors as well as a majority of the cities representing a majority of the population of the county, said Stanley T. Oftelie, director of the transportation commission.

Wieder and Oftelie said the study will only examine the feasibility--both politically and financially--of a new sales tax. They said the report may recommend that the board pursue a different course--as yet unidentified--to accomplish its transportation goals.

Whatever the conclusion of the report, both said the county must find a new source of revenue to meet its transportation needs.

“There has to be some kind of revenue increase,” Oftelie said. “We have tremendous street and road needs and every year they get worse and worse.”

Oftelie specifically mentioned the Santa Ana Freeway, which was last widened in 1965, when it was expected to be adequate for another 20 years.

“Time’s up,” Oftelie said. “We can’t move fast enough to improve that freeway. The state just can’t give us money fast enough.”

A half-cent sales tax, Oftelie said, could generate about $1.8 billion to $2.2 billion over about 15 years.

The California League of Cities has also suggested that counties examine the possibility of a gasoline tax. Oftelie said a 10-cent countywide gasoline tax would raise roughly the same amount of revenue as a half-cent sales tax.