Slow-Growth Initiative Foes Fire an Opening Volley

The countywide slow-growth initiative “masquerades as a traffic measure” but was put together by “a few elitists from south county,” a leading opponent of the measure said Monday as the campaign to defeat it was unveiled.

John Simon, the Newport Beach attorney who chairs the anti-initiative group called Citizens for Traffic Solutions, charged that the original initiative drafters simply want to prevent the planned San Joaquin Hills toll road from being built because the route is close to their homes.

He and other officials of the group opposing the June 7 ballot measure said Monday that they will tell voters that it raises taxes, slashes jobs and worsens traffic. They said they would deliver this message by using mailed brochures and volunteers and a paid staff to call voters at home and walk precincts.

Initiative supporters Tom Rogers and Russ Burkett reacted angrily to the characterizations of their position, calling Simon and Citizens for Traffic Solutions a front for developers and, as Burkett put it, “a bunch of liars and deceivers.”

And they indicated that attacking the credibility of Simon and his organization will be a major theme of their pro-initiative campaign.

The two men, whose homes are near the planned juncture of the San Joaquin Hills tollway and Interstate 5 in San Juan Capistrano, said they object to the planned 10-lane configuration of the highway project but do not oppose construction of a smaller, “scenic” corridor.

Rogers and Burkett pointed to several factors to support their charge that Citizens for Traffic Solutions is a front for developers, including:

- Simon’s membership in the Building Industry Assn.

- Simon’s written statement that BIA Executive Director John Erskine personally chose the first campaign manager of the anti-initiative group.

- Camille Courtney, the group’s finance chairman, is employed by a development firm.

- Lynn Wessell of Los Angeles, the campaign consultant who is now managing the campaign, was previously paid by developers for efforts against slow-growth measures and candidates in San Clemente, Riverside, San Dimas and several other cities in California.

John Gregory, spokesman for Citizens for Traffic Solutions, vigorously denied that the organization is a front for developers. And other campaign officials said Monday that they are mounting a countywide effort to recruit “grass-roots volunteers” to make sure that the group is broad-based.

So far, the organization has attracted 30 to 40 volunteers, according to Wessell, who acknowledged working on developers’ behalf in several previous campaigns. An endorsement sheet listed 58 people, some of them developers such as Mission Viejo Co. President Harvey Stearn, but also representatives from some homeowners groups. The list also included public officials who have long opposed restrictions on growth, such as Costa Mesa Mayor Donn Hall.

During Monday’s news conference, Bob Balgenorth, secretary-treasurer of the Building Trades Council, said the 27,000 construction workers in Orange County would be hit with a “triple whammy” by the initiative: Higher home prices, potential job losses and diversion of money for vital services away from the cities to the public facilities that the initiative would require in south Orange County.

Then Balgenorth said:

“My daughter Angie is 17 years old. . . . She’s probably about four years away from having to buy her own home. . . . She wonders how she’ll be able to afford to live and work in Orange County.”

Ron Greek, a member of the Saddleback Valley Coordinating Council, also spoke against the initiative during the news conference, arguing that Measure A would worsen traffic by jeopardizing developer fee-based financing for three planned south county tollways.

The group’s basic arguments, as outlined Monday:

- Traffic improvements dependent on developer fees will be threatened.

- The initiative “opens the door for more taxes to pay for $1.4 billion in new county expenditures.”

- “It will cause a loss of 98,792 jobs in the county.”

- The measure will raise home prices and apartment rents.

- “It will hurt families by reducing job opportunities and income.”

Greek and Simon said they favor the approach that the Board of Supervisors took with the Foothill Circulation Phasing Plan, in which major developers agreed to provide road improvements before completing their housing projects. This was done in exchange for blanket protection against future changes in county land-use policies.

But Rogers and Burkett pointed out Monday that the initiative does nothing to stop development or fees collected from developers. They said it merely requires new development to offset congestion that it causes and then only if traffic flow falls below certain levels of service.

They also argued that the $1.4-billion cost figure is incorrect because it includes many public facilities and services that are already planned by the county or contained in the general plan, the costs of which the county usually recovers to a large degree from developers.

The threat of new taxes is ridiculous, they said, because some supporters of Citizens for Traffic Solutions are themselves advocating a half-cent sales tax for transportation projects.

Rogers and Burkett also accused the group of distorting job figures, which were based on a much-disputed study by Chapman College. Although the figures are quoted directly from the study, they do not include an explanation contained in the Chapman report that they are reductions in future job growth, not cuts in current employment.

In a preview of what may be a cornerstone of their pro-initiative campaign, Rogers said he would try to raise enough money for a mail brochure alleging the ties between Citizens for Transportation Solutions and developers, and alleged instances in which the group or its spokesmen have made inaccurate claims about the initiative.