Justices Block Irvine Vote on Joining Highway Plan

The state Supreme Court, limiting local ballot measures on regionwide issues, refused Tuesday to allow Irvine voters to decide whether the city will join in a $1.3-billion plan to build three highways in Orange County.

In a 6-1 ruling, the court held that the highway project, authorized by state statute, was of statewide importance and thus was not subject to a local initiative without permission from the Legislature.

“The projects contemplated by (the law) are of the kind likely to require coordination on a regional basis and to have substantial impacts on persons living outside the boundaries of the city. . . ,” Justice Marcus M. Kaufman wrote for the court.

“In matters of statewide concern, the state may if it chooses preempt the entire field to the exclusion of all local control.”

Irvine Mayor Larry Agran, who had supported a vote on the project, called the ruling “a disappointment,” adding that it had done “great damage to the initiative process statewide.”

Agran vowed to go ahead with a planned election, even though Tuesday’s ruling means such a vote would be advisory only. “We have pledged to the voters of Irvine that we will not participate or assist in the financing (of the highway plan) if we don’t have the right to vote on the matter.”

“The present, sitting City Council--and I hope the future City Council--will treat it as a binding vote even if it isn’t,” Agran said.

In dissent, Justice Stanley Mosk sharply criticized the court majority for not asserting the constitutional right of local residents to work their will through the initiative process.

“Instead of jealously guarding one of the most precious rights of our democratic process, they appear to seek doubts they can resolve against the initiative power,” Mosk said. The city’s decision whether to participate in the project, he said, is “clearly subject to the electorate’s initiative power.”

The ruling came in the midst of a wide-ranging dispute over growth and congestion in the state’s third-most populous county, behind Los Angeles and San Diego counties.

An attorney representing a local citizens’ group that had challenged the highway plan over environmental concerns assailed Tuesday’s decision, saying it would encourage developers to seek through state law what they could not attain in local elections.

“This is a terrible precedent,” said Frederic D. Woocher of the Center for Law in the Public Interest, the lawyer for the Committee of Seven Thousand.

“What we are going to find is that developers who lose the battle at the local level will go to the Legislature in an end-run to avoid local controversy,” Woocher said. “They’ll try to get legislation that restricts local authority under the guise of being a ‘statewide concern.’ And that’s the very thing the constitutional provision for initiatives is there to prevent.”

Attorneys for a group of builders and transportation officials that opposed a local initiative on the project were not immediately available for comment.

The case arose after years of unsuccessful efforts by local officials to obtain state or federal funding for three new “transportation corridors” in the county.

Finally, in 1984, the Legislature enacted a novel statute authorizing the county Board of Supervisors and the “city council of any city” in the county to help finance the project by collecting fees from developers of new projects.

Developer Fees

About half the cost of the highways would come from developer fees, with fees collected by the city of Irvine providing an estimated 25% of such funding.

Most of the governing bodies, including the Irvine City Council, approved the financing plan. But the Committee of Seven Thousand, fearing that new roads would bring more traffic congestion, gathered more than 7,000 signatures for a “citizens’ right to vote” initiative to require voter approval of any fees to help finance the three highways.

The Building Industry Assn. of Southern California and other business and transportation groups challenged the initiative in court. In December, 1985, a state Court of Appeal in Santa Ana upheld the challenge, finding that the project was of “statewide concern” and that the question of participation had been delegated exclusively by the Legislature to the supervisors and city councils.

Ruling Appealed

Meanwhile, as the Committee of Seven Thousand appealed to the state Supreme Court, the immediate practical impact of the case was reduced through a series of events.

The Irvine City Council, with a shift in the political alignment on the issue, pledged that if the committee’s initiative could not be placed on the ballot, it would ask local voters for an “advisory vote” on the project and abide by the result. Backers of the highway plan said that if Irvine decided not to participate, alternative sources of funding could be obtained to make up the difference.

About $9 million to $10 million in developer fees has been collected by the city of Irvine and held in escrow pending the outcome of the case. At least one major developer, the Irvine Co., has pledged to pay fees for the project even if the city declines to join in it.

Agran said the advisory election on the issue could be held as soon as November or perhaps in a special vote next year.

“The advisory vote will trigger the following series of events,” Agran said. “If the citizens vote down the city’s participation in the (tollway) program, the (highway agencies) can continue to collect fees for a period of four years. So far they’ve collected $10 million out of the city of Irvine. But they have about $90 million to go, possibly as much as $200 million more to go, over 15 to 20 years. During the four years that they could continue collecting, that might mean another $10 million or $15 million for the (agencies).”

In their decision Tuesday, the justices noted that while street work had long been regarded as a local matter, the court in previous decisions had recognized that “construction of major highways has effects beyond municipal borders.”

The Legislature, in authorizing the countywide highway project, clearly envisioned a “regional enterprise” that would facilitate action on “an urgent regional transportation problem,” Kaufman wrote in a 36-page majority opinion.

More Difficult Task

Permitting initiatives and referendums would make the project “more difficult and time-consuming,” the court noted. On the other hand, local elected officials, dealing constantly with regional concerns, “can be expected to make decisions reflecting both their own acquired expertise and the sentiments of their constituents,” Kaufman said.

The court rejected the committee’s contentions that if the statute barred local initiatives, it violated constitutional provisions guaranteeing that “initiative and referendum powers may be exercised by the electors of each city or county. . . .”

The state can preempt the field of legislation on matters of “statewide concern,” the court said, and if the Legislature wants to grant some local control it can impose restrictions on such authority, including “the exercise of the initiative and referendum.”

Times staff writer Jeffrey Perlman in Orange County contributed to this story.