Secret Talks Fail; Slow-Growth Group to File Its Petitions

Secret talks aimed at forging a compromise between supporters of the controversial slow-growth initiative and county supervisors continued Monday, but the effort collapsed late in the day.

Backers of the proposed measure are scheduled to file petitions bearing more than 80,000 signatures with the county registrar’s office today in an effort to qualify the countywide initiative for the June ballot.

Monday evening, Irvine developer Mike Ray acknowledged that he had made an 11th-hour effort to talk key leaders of the movement out of submitting the petitions.

Ray said he asked Gregory A. Hile, Belinda Blacketer and others if they would “back off” if the Board of Supervisors could be persuaded to adopt the initiative as an ordinance and appoint a citizens commission to work out ways to implement the complicated measure.

Ray declined to say who among the slow-growth activists was willing to accept the proposal, but other sources said several were ready to go along until Tom Rogers strenuously objected. Rogers was co-founder of Orange County Tomorrow, which drafted the initiative.

Rogers said Monday night that he was not present at the discussions with Ray but had called other activists Monday to leave no doubt about his opposition to the proposed deal.

No Compromise

Ray said it was a “failure” on everybody’s part that no compromise could be reached. “Now all we have ahead of us is three or four years of litigation in the courts,” he said, referring to builders’ plans to challenge the initiative in court.

“As of 5 p.m. tonight,” he said Monday, “there is no compromise. And that’s a crying shame.”

The whirlwind of activity on the eve of the filing of the slow-growth petitions also extended to the county supervisors’ offices in the Hall of Administration in Santa Ana.

There, in last-minute staff meetings, the possibility of amending or delaying approval for six development agreements scheduled to come before the board this week was being discussed, sources said. But it appeared that a majority of the supervisors were in favor of taking up the agreements on Wednesday as written.

County officials have acknowledged that the agreements, which require developers to pay for new roads before housing projects are completed, are being rushed through in an attempt to circumvent the proposed ballot measure.

The agreements would freeze zoning on development sites and, in effect, guarantee that the county will not interfere with developers’ current building plans in the future. In return, the developers are to contribute a total of more than $130 million toward new roads and public facilities in south Orange County.

Board sources said Supervisor Gaddi H. Vasquez was hoping to postpone consideration of the agreements, partly so he could add language related to a growth-management plan of his own that he disclosed last week. But Vasquez denied those reports and said he favors taking them up as scheduled.

The six agreements on Wednesday’s agenda cover Rancho Santa Margarita, Aliso Viejo, Foothill Ranch, Mission Hills, Bear Brand and Dove Canyon. The board already has approved development agreements for Mission Viejo and Country Village.

In Costa Mesa Monday, volunteers filed petitions in an effort to get a version of the countywide slow-growth measure on that city’s June ballot. San Clemente signature-gatherers submitted a similar stack of petitions last week, and San Juan Capistrano organizers are scheduled to file signatures today.

Similar citywide signature-gathering efforts are continuing in Huntington Beach and Seal Beach.

In order for the initiative to be certified for the countywide ballot, the registrar of voters must verify that nearly 66,000 of the signatures to be submitted today are those of registered Orange County voters.

Under state law, Registrar Don Tanney has 30 days to determine whether the signatures are valid. Tanney said Monday, however, that his office will finish the job before then by using a new, computerized microfiche system.

That, he said, probably will enable 10 or 11 workers to finish verifying signatures within the 17 working days remaining before the statutory deadline for including any proposed measure on the June 7 ballot.

Tanney has said his office will check each of the more than 80,000 signatures expected to be submitted. He said Monday that he did not know how much the process will cost but added that he charges cities 60 cents per signature to check petitions they want processed by his office.

According to the secretary of state’s office, it is unusual for all signatures on petitions to be checked individually, though practices vary from county to county. Los Angeles, San Francisco, San Diego and Riverside counties use random sampling to determine whether the percentage of invalid signatures is high enough to warrant a signature-by-signature analysis.

Tanney said he decided to check every signature from the outset because of the controversial nature of the slow-growth initiative and because random sampling probably would show a disqualification rate high enough to require further checking.

Slow-growth activists have complained that Tanney’s procedures will waste taxpayers’ money, but Tanney said Monday that “a full check protects everyone.”

Hile, treasurer of the countywide slow-growth campaign organization, filed a document with Tanney Monday afternoon that allows fellow slow-growth activist Russ Burkett to deliver the signatures. Hile planned to be in Massachusetts today on a business trip.

Several speeches and a large gathering of slow-growth supporters in the parking lot of Tanney’s office at 1300 South Grand Ave. in Santa Ana were planned for today. The petitions are to be delivered to Tanney’s office in a hearse.

Monday, leaders of the slow-growth movement disclosed in mandatory financial statements filed with Tanney’s office that they had raised and spent less than $31,000 on their initiative efforts as of Dec. 31. Hile said last week, however, that the group has collected and spent another $23,000 since then.

Financial Disclosure

Citizens for Sensible Growth and Traffic Control, the countywide campaign organization, filed its first financial disclosure a week late. It showed that the group had raised $25,798 and spent $30,871 as of the end of 1987.

The largest single contribution was $5,000 from the Homeland Foundation of Laguna Beach, followed by $2,000 from Laguna Greenbelt Inc., an environmental group.

Initiative campaign leaders said Monday they had never heard of the Homeland Foundation but believed it is connected with wildlife conservation efforts. Foundation officials could not be reached for comment.

Most of the expenditures reported were for postage and printing of petitions. The report showed cash on hand of $6,291.