Measure A to Date: Foes $1.6 Million; Backers $48,000

Orange County’s development and construction industries have poured more than $1 million of the $1.6 million raised to defeat the slow-growth initiative on the June 7 countywide ballot, setting a record for the amount spent on a local growth-control initiative in the state.

Out-raising the initiative sponsors by a 33-1 margin, the anti-initiative group reported its total receipts Friday and expenditures of about $601,000. The figures were reported in mandatory financial disclosure forms filed with the county registrar of voters.

The group backed by the development and construction industry calls itself Citizens for Traffic Solutions (CTS). The statements filed Friday showed that nearly all of the $1.5 million in contributions reported by the group since March 18 came from developers, builders and their subcontractors. Several other contributions that were reported by telegram to the registrar brought the grand total to over $1.6 million.

CTS has launched a major campaign to get out the message that the growth-control measure actually will make traffic congestion worse, not better, as proponents have asserted. Details of how the group opposed to Measure A, the slow-growth initiative, has financed this campaign, which emerged in the statements Friday, showed that the biggest expenditures involved more than $75,000 for air time on 10 radio stations, $27,000 for computerized mail services and more than $27,000 in legal fees.

In addition, the Wessell Co., which is managing the campaign against Measure A, was paid $20,000. And individuals working for Lynn R. Wessell, the campaign manager, were paid a combined total of more than $10,000, as were several temporary personnel companies who recruited $7-an-hour precinct walkers and telephone solicitors.

On Wednesday, the initiative sponsors, known as Citizens for Sensible Growth and Traffic Control, reported receipts of $48,000 and expenditures of $67,000, including $25,000 in unpaid legal fees.

According to a UCLA study, the previous record for money spent on a local growth-control initiative in the state was about $600,000 against a November, 1986, ballot measure in San Francisco.

“Donations to our campaign,” said CTS chairman John Simon, “have come from companies, civic organizations and individuals who represent 350,000 to 365,000 individuals living and/or working in Orange County. This is an average of $4.20 to $4.37 per person.”

Simon added that the low amount raised by proponents of Measure A shows that they have not expanded their political base beyond the hard-core activists who helped draft the measure.

His remarks angered initiative sponsors, who said the amount of money being spent by the development and construction industries just proves that the campaign to defeat the ballot measure is being waged by a single-interest group.

“It’s one industry (that) is so desperate to deprive the citizens of any voice in the planning process that they were willing to spend a record amount on a county initiative campaign,” said slow-growth leader Tom Rogers.

In 1984, about $1.7 million was spent on behalf of Proposition A, a proposed penny-per-dollar Orange County sales tax for transportation projects that was defeated 2 to 1 by a campaign led by Rogers. With more than a week remaining before the election, Rogers predicts that the 1984 spending record will be shattered.

“It shows what we all knew was going to happen--that the developers would spent a huge amount of money on a large propaganda campaign to buy the election,” said Gregory A. Hile, an attorney who helped write the initiative. “For Simon to suggest that this is a grass-roots campaign where everybody is contributing $4 is absolute bull. This will help raise the consciousness of people about the propaganda campaign that’s being waged against us and the obscene amount of money that’s being spent.”

The Irvine Co., which as the county’s largest landholder has a major financial stake in the election’s outcome, led the list of anti-measure contributors with $108,114. Company spokeswoman Judy Frutig described the contribution as “a measure of our long-standing commitment to improve transportation in Orange County. . . . Measure A doesn’t do it.”

She said developers are spending so much on the campaign in part because “it takes a lot of money to get information to voters so that they can make an informed judgment.”

The Santa Margarita Co., the county’s third largest developer, contributed or loaned $100,000 to Citizens for Traffic Solutions. Its president, Tony Moiso, said: “Somebody has to try to stand up and tell the truth. And if this is what it takes, then this is what it takes. The initiative doesn’t work, and somebody’s got to say that. I’m in the unincorporated area. . . . It’s aimed at guys like me. I’m investing in the people who work for me, too.”

Asked why more rank-and-file citizens aren’t making at least small contributions to the campaign, Moiso said: “That’s really a frustration. I don’t know the answer to that.”

Measure A seeks to prevent traffic from getting any worse in the county’s unincorporated areas by tying future growth there to the ability of local roads and public services to handle more traffic and increased workloads.

Before March 18, Citizens for Traffic Solutions had reported raising $75,000 to oppose Measure A. As of May 21, the closing date for the most recent campaign finance-reporting period, the group reported cash on hand of $860,952. Expenditures totaled $600,699, but campaign officials said that amount does not include unpaid bills that eventually will swell that amount.

Both sides can accept contributions up until the election, but they must report donations larger than $1,000 to the county registrar of voters within 24 hours.

In addition to showing that this campaign is the costliest slow-growth battle in the state, the study--in UCLA’s Journal of Environmental Law--also found that opponents of growth control had to outspend supporters by better than 6 to 1 to have a good chance of defeating a measure.