Mixed Signals Seen in Results of Voter Poll on Measure A

A poll published Sunday that shows eroding support for the county’s slow-growth initiative drew charges of deceptive campaign tactics from backers of the initiative, while opponents said the 19-point drop means voters are starting to believe the ballot issue will only make traffic worse.

“The (poll) results clearly show that the slippage was caused by the other side’s continued use of the most outrageous campaign of deceits and falsehoods that I’ve ever seen,” said Tom Rogers, president of Citizens for Sensible Growth and Traffic Control, the group sponsoring the ballot measure. “They win the (Nazi propagandist) Joseph Goebbels award. They’ve given new meaning to the term big lie ,” Rogers charged.

John R. Simon, treasurer of Citizens for Traffic Solutions, the key anti-initiative group, said that the poll shows the measure will eventually lose.

“People are intelligent, and when they understand this initiative will make traffic worse, they’ll vote against it. Our own polls also show that traffic is the best and easiest argument to raise against the initiative,” he said.

The countywide poll of 600 registered voters, conducted for The Times by Mark Baldassare and Associates and published Sunday, showed that support for the Citizens Sensible Growth and Traffic Control Initiative has slipped sharply from 73% in February to 54% in mid-May. The poll showed 22% oppose the initiative, with 24% undecided.

However, despite the slippage, political consultants said that barring a major stumble by initiative supporters in the next two weeks, they expect the initiative to pass.

“I still think it will pass by a 2 to 1 margin,” said Michael Nason of Nason Lundberg & Associates in Orange. “ I don’t see any red flags here for the supporters.”

Rogers on Sunday blamed the drop in support on Citizens for Traffic Solutions, saying that the opposition group has confused voters with its name and has made false claims about Measure A’s allegedly harmful effects.

For example, Rogers said residents have received calls from Citizens for Traffic Solutions in which employment, real estate price and tax increase statistics from various sources have been exaggerated to scare people, including a claim that passage of Measure A will lead to an average $1,800 per home tax hike.

Actually, several studies have shown that the initiative cannot by itself result in any tax increase because of Proposition 13.

“I confronted a guy yesterday who was circulating their literature in my neighborhood,” Rogers said, “and he told me that he was living out of his pickup truck, had been ordered not to reveal who paid him and not to give out his name. He admitted he knew nothing about the initiative. That’s the kind of thing we’re up against. It’s an outright fraud on the voters.”

Rogers said he had received several dozen complaints from residents who believed that telephone callers from Citizens for Traffic Solutions had made false claims.

Still, Rogers said that his group had anticipated the poll results and was already placing ads in newspapers to counter the “No on A” campaign.

‘Operating a Scam’

Rogers said the group ran an ad in Friday evening’s San Clemente Sun-Post newspaper that accuses Citizens for Traffic Solutions and another anti-initiative group, the Orange County Homeowners and Taxpayers Committee, of “operating a scam.”

The ad warned voters of the allegedly deceptive telemarketing techniques and urged residents to complain to the registrar of voters, the district attorney’s office and the state Fair Political Practices Commission.

Russ Burkett, executive director of Orange County Tomorrow, the group that drafted the initiative, said the problem for Measure A proponents is that “we have to convince our ‘Yes’ voters to turn out on election day.”

Norm Grossman, another key initiative supporter, said that if campaign finance disclosure reports due this week show that much of the anti-initiative campaign has been financed by developers, as expected, the resulting newspaper publicity about that could reverse some of the slippage that recently occurred in Measure A’s support.

“The problem is getting our message out,” Grossman said. “We have very limited resources, and so far there hasn’t been any ‘contra’ campaign.”

Grossman said that while the shift from support for Measure A to the undecided category is frightening, it follows the same pattern as Proposition 13 in 1978. “Prop. 13 dropped down too at right about the same time before the election, and then it went back up,” Grossman said. “If we can hold our support, we’ve got it (victory).”

Irvine Councilman Ralph (Ray) Catalano, a professor of social science at UC Irvine and another key initiative supporter, said he never expected the slow-growth initiative to retain its previous high levels of support.

“This is going to be a tough battle,” he said. “The other side’s campaign is so distorted. With their million-dollar budget, you can make inroads. Our job in the remaining 12 days is to keep repeating a theme: The future of Orange County is on the line and that’s what this is all about--Do we want another New York City, or a place to live as you’ve always dreamt it.”

Opponents of the initiative said Sunday that the poll results show their campaign is swaying voters. The campaign has hammered on two themes: that the initiative would make traffic worse and raise taxes.

“People are intelligent, and when they understand this initiative will make traffic worse, they’ll vote against it,” said Simon, the Newport Beach lawyer and treasurer of Citizens for Traffic Solutions.

The “No on A” campaign’s own polls are within a percentage point or two of The Times’ poll, said Lynn R. Wessell, the campaign’s consultant.

Wessell agreed with The Times poll’s finding that more of the votes for the initiative are “soft,” and could be swayed against the initiative in the next two weeks with the message that the initiative would worsen traffic.

“Their support appears to be vulnerable,” Wessell said. “It’s not out of the realm of possibility that we can win.”

The campaign got a late start but since this month has been putting out its message via billboards, telephone calls, canvassing neighborhoods and--beginning last week--on radio stations.

“I think originally this was perceived as an uprising of the people against local government and developers,” said Lucien Truhill, president of the Orange County Chamber of Commerce, which opposes the measure.

“Now I think this issue is becoming paramount: What exactly does this initiative do, and are we cutting off our nose to spite our face by voting for it?”

The potential for an emotional protest vote for the initiative and against builders and county government worries campaign officials.

“It’s an emotional issue, a story that’s easier to tell than the facts,” said Gordon Tippell, a local builder and president of the Building Industry Assn. of Orange County.

“Now that public awareness has increased of what it says, it’s made people realize that it won’t do what it purports to do--solve the traffic problem.”

The campaign has broadened its base of supporters beyond the building industry, which has the most to lose should the initiative pass.

But the campaign could have a problem later this week if its required disclosure reports show most of its contributions are from builders and developers.

Source of Support

“People tend to look at where the money comes from in an initiative campaign more so than they do with a candidates’ contributions,” consultant Nason said.

Nason, who is consulting for a candidate who supports the initiative, said the poll shows opponents will have an almost impossible task defeating the initiative.

With 24% of voters undecided and only 22% voting no, the initiative is very likely to win, Nason said.

“The rule of thumb is that you usually split the undecided voters 50-50,” he said. “So that still gives the ‘No’ campaign only 36%.”

Political consultant Harvey Englander, who opposes the initiative, agreed.

Englander said the poll did not reflect the propensity of initiative voters to go to the polls, and south Orange County’s tendency to have higher turnout percentages. Previous polls have shown that the initiative has stronger support in the south.

‘Bound to Lose Support’

“If anyone is saying that this poll means that Measure A is in trouble or is going to lose, I disagree,” Englander said. “It was bound to lose support. Not even Proposition 13 won that high a vote.”

Baldassare, who conducted the poll, said he found no significant difference in the propensity of either proponents or opponents to go to the polls on June 7.

He said there was a slight decrease in the likelihood of the undecided voters to participate in the election.

And he said the poll tested the messages of the anti-initiative campaign because those were the dominant signals being sent to voters during the week the survey was taken.

Baldassare said the counter-messages given to voters by initiative proponents are also important.

“Our purpose wasn’t so much to look at how much support would eventually increase or decrease, but rather what messages were people most susceptible to,” said Baldassare, “and the message about traffic is in fact a driving force.”