Highlights of Televised Debate on Slow-Growth Initiative

Here are edited excerpts from a televised debate on the Orange County slow-growth initiative, listed as Measure A on Tuesday’s ballot.

The debate, sponsored by The Times Orange County Edition, was broadcast May 23 on KOCE Channel 50 and moderated by KOCE’s Jim Cooper. It will be rebroadcast Sunday at 6 p.m.

Initiative supporters participating in the debate were Belinda Blacketer, a Laguna Beach attorney and one of the drafters of the measure; Ray Catalano, UC Irvine professor of social ecology and Irvine city councilman, and Norm Grossman, aerospace engineer and member of Citizens for Sensible Growth and Traffic Control, the group sponsoring the initiative.

Opponents participating in the debate were John R. Simon, Newport Beach lawyer and founder of the anti-initiative group Citizens for Traffic Solutions; Crystal Sims, Legal Aid Society attorney, and Wayne Wedin, former Brea city manager who is now a consultant.

Cooper: When voters go into the polls June 7 they will find Measure A described in 44 words. The actual measure is eight pages long and it totals about 4,400 words. There are two things everyone should know. First, this is a countywide measure with all 1,037,000 voters in Orange County eligible to vote on it. Second, it affects only the unincorporated areas. Of course, I think you’ll all agree that this has great implications for all of Orange County even though it’s only addressing the unincorporated area.

First question to Ray Catalano, professor of social ecology at UCI: The Times Poll has just reported that 24% of the people in the county are undecided on Measure A. What’s the most compelling single argument that you would make to those undecided voters?

Catalano: I’d want them to know that a yes vote is probably their last opportunity to have a voice in the future of Orange County. And as an economist and planner, I can tell you that the principal threat to their future well-being economically is traffic congestion.

Cooper: Wayne Wedin, former Brea city manager.

Wedin: The fact is that traffic will actually increase, not decrease, and (people) have to consider who’s going to pay for these increased service levels that are mandated in the initiative. When that gets discussed with people, that’s a very telling kind of issue, that traffic gets worse, and I’ve got to be careful about economics.

Cooper: Belinda Blacketer, co-author of the initiative.

Blacketer: I believe that this is our last chance to save Orange County. We have been going downhill for a long time and if we do not speak out and tell our decision makers that we want something done about the situation in Orange County, they will never listen to us again.

Cooper: Crystal Sims, director of litigation for the Legal Aid Society of Orange County.

Sims: I’m opposed to the initiative because of the impact it will have on the already critical housing shortage. To the extent that the supply of housing is restricted by the initiative, the cost of housing will go up because of demand.

Cooper: Norman Grossman, vice president of Citizens for Sensible Growth and Traffic Control .

Grossman: I think the measure is exactly what the name implies--it’s a sensible way to get a handle on the growth that the county has been seeing. It’s a method that every impartial study has shown will cause an improvement in traffic and will not cause the scare stories that are being spread about it.

Cooper: John Simon, citizen and chairman of Citizens for Traffic Solutions .

Simon: There is no doubt what the No. 1 issue is. It’s been framed by proponents as traffic congestion. (But) not only will it jeopardize the financing of the freeways (and) delay the freeways for a long period of time, but the traffic congestion that is addressed in the initiative has nothing to do with freeways.

Cooper: Mr. Grossman, if Measure A passes, will it make Orange County’s critical traffic problems better or worse?

Grossman: The Los Angeles Times in an article a week ago commissioned four experts, urban planning experts, to look at this problem, and the headline was, not a solution but a step in the right direction. And that’s all we have ever claimed it to be. It will set a base line for future growth. It says where we’re going. And it’s important to note again that this is an impartial study done by four people not directly associated with the measure, and all of them said the same thing--it will help. It will help freeways, it’ll help other roads.

Cooper: Let’s go to Wayne Wedin.

Wedin: It’s interesting that the initiative itself says that this measure will alleviate present and future traffic congestion. It doesn’t say anything about it’s not going to get worse, it doesn’t say anything about establishing a base line. It says we’re going to make it better. And I think our viewers have the right to expect before this show is over that the proponents tell them how they’re going to make existing traffic better, because that’s what they said on their document.

Cooper: What are you saying?

Wedin: What I’m saying is that the traffic gets worse.

Catalano: The traffic obviously gets better because the requirement is that you can’t build on our major arterials unless you can demonstrate that the traffic will get better. Not only that, but in fact much of the traffic that’s on our freeways in Orange County is there because the arterial system historically has been so poorly developed because the local governments never have the courage to require the developers to put them in. If, in fact, they are put in and are improved, then not only will they flow better but in fact the freeway will flow better.

Simon: Fifty percent of our traffic in Orange County goes on freeways. This initiative will do nothing about the freeways. As a matter of fact, it will put more cars on the road (by restricting) housing development in the county, making people travel farther to work. The more commuters you have on the freeway, the more traffic you have. (And) it is going to delay for an unknown period of time the construction of the three corridors--the San Joaquin (Hills) Corridor is by some accounts scheduled to start next year. That’s not going to happen if this initiative passes. In south Orange County we don’t have a grid pattern of arterial streets like we have in north Orange County. We need those freeways to move traffic about, and we’re not going to get them if this initiative passes.

Cooper: So you’re saying the effect won’t be neutral, it’ll make traffic worse?

Simon: Much, much worse, yes.

Blacketer: I disagree. First of all, the developers are not going to pay for the freeway and development is not going to pay for the new corridors. Studies have shown that the cost of the transportation corridors is $3 billion, not $1.3 to $1.6 (billion). If you factor in the development fees that are projected to come from the developers, that’s only 20% of the total cost of the freeways. If you take the tolls and add that in, that’s another 15% to 20%, which means (that) to build the freeways to the size that they have to be to carry the new development that’s being proposed in south county, we have a 60% shortfall in funding over the next 15 years. We may, in fact, get four lanes on the ground but all we’re doing is building a four-lane arterial highway which is divided; it is not a new freeway, it does not solve our traffic problem. If we can get eight lanes on the ground, which is what is needed right now, it might relieve some of the traffic.

Cooper: Do any of you want to specifically tell our viewers how it’s going to make traffic get better?

Blacketer: It has to make traffic get better, because you’re not allowed to continue to build on those arterials that are already impacted. You have to mitigate your own traffic impact. It requires a contribution from the developer, either in money or in actual improvements, before he can add traffic.

Wedin: We have a lot of existing development that’s in place but is not yet occupied. All one has to do is to figure out the amount of available space, multiply the number of employees to get fed into those vacant spaces, figure out whether they can afford housing here or not, and increasingly larger numbers can’t. That means they’re going to be commuting from Riverside, San Bernardino and San Diego. And this initiative does not do anything about regional traffic.

Catalano: This is a smoke-screen. What no one wants to talk about is that if you leave the current system in place to chug along as it is, then every adverse forecast that’s been made over the last decade by the County Board of Supervisors, by every city, by the regional agencies and by the state, predict that Orange County will have a disastrous traffic situation. What Wayne and others are trying to do is to divert us from the fact that the history of the behavior of local governments in Orange County has for the most part been irresponsible when it comes to land-use decisions and transportation. I think the people of Orange County have got to recognize that and know that there’s only one way to change that behavior, and that’s for them to say, we want to get your attention directly by saying you can no longer say yes until the capacity is there.

Wedin: Let’s be sure that we don’t misrepresent each other’s positions. We’re not here saying there isn’t improvement needed at all. That is totally irresponsible to even suggest that. But we’re saying that what we need is a truly sensible approach, not one that experiments and tinkers with this great county of ours.

Cooper: And what is the sensible approach then?

Wedin: We’ve got to use our system better. We’ve got to manage our resources better. If we can increase the number of people in vehicles from 1.2 to 1.4 people per car, we can have free-flowing traffic at peak-hour time. This region has done it, in spite of the fact that some people feel that traffic management systems don’t work. We know they do.

Cooper: If Measure A is defeated, will the prospect be better or worse for building the transportation corridors, the roads and the resources needed to avoid gridlock?

Sims: I think that probably the traffic situation will improve. If nothing else, the initiative has certainly given a strong message to politicians that people of this county want something done with the traffic situation, and, in addition, the funds which are already going to be made available for the three transportation corridors will not be jeopardized.

Cooper: Norm, if Measure A is defeated, what assurances are there that traffic is going to get better?

Grossman: I don’t think there’s any. It sends the exact wrong message. If you look at the studies that are being done again, the Auto Club says that in order to maintain any type of mobility in the Southern California region, we have to spend $20 billion by the year 2000. The Southern California Assn. of Governments says $110 billion by the year 2010 to maintain our mobility. That’s without any type of growth management. Growth management is an essential key to making sure we don’t all go bankrupt trying to keep some mobility.

Simon: I disagree diametrically with Norm. The problem is that we are going to have this growth in Southern California. We can’t chase it out of every county of Southern California, so let’s get on with it and let’s build the roads. This side doesn’t want to build the roads. They’re dead set against the San Joaquin Hills Corridor. That’s what this initiative is all about. Let’s just build the roads and get on with it!

Catalano: I’m not against it, I’m on the record as favoring it. I’m on the record as favoring six lanes of the San Joaquin Hills Corridor. The study just completed for the Irvine Co. says that with the 40-cent or 50-cent fare, six lanes is all you’ll ever need. I don’t know where the idea gets going that we don’t favor the San Joaquin Hills Corridor, No. 1.

Cooper: Ms. Blacketer, if housing developments are drastically reduced because of passage of Measure A, cutting off developers’ fees for new roads, where will the money come from to build them?

Blacketer: I don’t believe the housing developments will be drastically reduced. The easiest way to meet the requirements of this initiative is to build housing for employees near new job centers. That way you have reduced the traffic, met the requirements of the initiative and you can go ahead and build your project. And I think the large landowners in Orange County will quickly realize that and do it and get on with business.

Simon: That’s exactly right. The problem is Aliso Viejo is located close to job centers. The city of Irvine is fighting the development of Aliso Viejo. They don’t want it built. We need to develop Aliso Viejo. These people don’t want to develop that. If we developed that, we would have relatively high-density housing near job centers, which is exactly what we need.

Cooper: What if the housing money is cut off?

Catalano: First of all, even if the initiative passed and even if it was as bad as they claim it would be, and it isn’t in terms of constraining new housing, the people of Orange County must be aware that there are 68,000 units of housing that have been already approved by the Board of Supervisors that would not be constrained by this initiative. Each of the last three years only 7, 9 and 11,000 units were approved by building permits. You could build for seven years with that amount of entitlement already there.

Wedin: The issue of whether or not we can afford to build housing also relates to the standards that have to be met in the initiative. Even the impartial analysis in the voters pamphlet says there are increased costs for added levels of public service, and it’s nice to talk about building housing closer to work, but if we load costs on what is already one of the highest products in the state, people aren’t going to be able to afford to buy them.

Catalano: They can’t afford to buy them now.

Wedin: So we make it worse.

Catalano: No.

Cooper: Let’s go to another area. Orange County’s private sector economy will produce a gross county product of $53.2 billion and create 27,000 new jobs this year, according to the Chapman College economic forecast. Will the passage of Measure A help or hurt the county’s economy and the county job outlook?

Wedin: It will not help it. And over the run, over the short to medium run, it will have a negative influence. Some of the people that have looked at the Chapman study say its assumptions are too conservative and that we have to remember that we do have a robust economy and it won’t take over the day after on June 8th. But my conviction is that it does have a negative impact--the economy and jobs.

Grossman: The Chapman study is filled with incredible assumptions and if you take the ones, the only way they can make it look so bad was to assume that this was a moratorium in disguise, which clearly it is not and legally it is not.

Cooper: So you’re saying it won’t hurt these 27 or 30,000 new jobs every year.

Grossman: If you take the Chapman study report and analyze it for what they assume is the impact of the initiative without a moratorium, it’s less than 1%.

Simon: What we’re doing is we’re playing with fire for no conceivable benefit. What I hear is it won’t make traffic better, it won’t affect the freeways, that it won’t restrict housing, so I don’t know what this sensible growth is all about; what are we sensibly growthing if it won’t restrict housing, what’s this initiative all about? What we’re doing is we’re playing with the free marketplace. We’ve never had in the history of this country any initiative, growth management, slow growth, no growth, of such magnitude over such a big county. We don’t know what will happen. The Chapman study did not assume a moratorium. It assumed a 15% reduction after three years. That’s what it assumes. If it assumed a moratorium, you would have disaster in this county.

Cooper: With things as they are right now, this year 27,000 new jobs will be created and the gross county product will be $53.2 billion. The question is, will passage of this help or hurt those figures.

Simon: It’s not going to help those figures. In the long run, it’s going to hurt them. You’re not going to see something, as Wayne says, happen June 8th or June 9th. But 1989, you’re going to see something. You can’t take the largest industry in the county, which is the construction and development industry, and reduce it in size and not affect the economy.

Catalano: First of all, there’s not one shred of economic theory or one piece of data that supports the contention that the construction industry drives Orange County’s economy. The finding of that study is that in the worst case, 10 years from now Orange County will have 1,452,000 jobs. Orange County now has 1,180,000 jobs. That’s an annual growth of 27,000 jobs, which is exactly the rate Orange County grew at last year. So under the worst analysis that they could cook up, Orange County for the indefinite future will go on doing what it does now.

Cooper: Would industry be more or less attracted to settle in Orange County if Measure A passes?

Blacketer: I think they’d be more attracted, because hopefully one way to solve the problems is to locate housing for employees in the new job centers. We are, in fact, losing a lot of industry because they’re following the workers out of the county right now. We’re also going to a more service- and retail-based economy, according to the projections. And traditionally that has a lower income. And so we’ve got to provide more employee housing in these new job centers.

Sims: I think that industry would be less likely to locate to Orange County. To the extent that housing costs are increased by the initiative, a smaller and smaller segment of the labor force can live in Orange County, and it will be more and more difficult to obtain employees because people are not going to want to commute an hour and a half from Riverside and San Bernardino counties. There are already 150,000 people a year commuting to Orange County from San Bernardino and Riverside counties because they can’t afford to buy in Orange County.

Grossman: The issue on raising housing prices is an interesting one. Again, if you look at other areas that have instituted growth controls, they find that that doesn’t happen because of competition with remaining areas, that, in fact, the housing prices do not go up. There may be a very small spurt at the beginning but then it levels out. The Times has done articles on Boulder, Colo., Petaluma, etc. The housing prices are comparable with the surrounding neighborhoods.

Cooper: What kind of economy can we expect if Measure A is defeated?

Catalano: If it’s defeated you’ll probably destroy the manufacturing base of the county, and I think to the degree that you can measure any historic relationship between one sector of Orange County and the overall success of Orange County, it’s the relationship between manufacturing and the overall success.

Simon: I don’t understand the connection. If it is defeated, what we can do, we can build new plants. Under the initiative it would be very difficult to build a new plant, it would be very difficult to add to a plant. You’re not going to attract business here under those circumstances. Housing will be restricted, it will be less available, it will be harder to house the workers.

Cooper: Would the environmental values in additional parks, facilities and services called for in Measure A make the county more or less attractive to prospective new commercial and industrial firms?

Grossman: It is obviously important to people knowing that they are going to have proper police service, proper paramedic and fire. I think it would enhance.

Cooper: Will these amenities called for make it more attractive for industry?

Wedin: I have got the voter pamphlet that was published under the name of the county auditor on the fiscal impact statement and it says there are increased costs related to providing a higher level of sheriff, fire and paramedic services. It goes on to say increased costs related to bringing county road, flood control and park infrastructure up to a new standard or an existing standard that is currently not being met. What that really says is it’s going to cost more money to do business here, and it’s going to make it much more expensive, much less competitive for firms to come in here and compete.

Catalano: That presumes, of course, that we know the cost of implementing the current plan under current behaviors. We have a report from 1981 done by the county administrative officer which says to the Board of Supervisors, if you go on doing what you’re doing, the county will compile between the year 1981 and the year 2000 an aggregate deficit of $1.4 billion. Now who’s going to pay for that? Obviously new homeowners and new businesses will pay for that.

Cooper: All these amenities such as parks and the paramedics have to make a response within five minutes, the police have to make a response within five minutes, and the amenities that are called for. What will be the affect of that? Will it make it more or less attractive to industry?

Sims: It will probably be less attractive, again because of the cost of housing. The labor force will not be able to live in Orange County. It may be a wonderful life for people who are already here, but it doesn’t deal with creation of jobs in the future and housing for the employees.

Blacketer: My information from the county and the cities in the county is that they are already meeting these standards. The reason for five minutes in an emergency is that if you have stopped breathing and it goes on for more than five minutes, you suffer massive brain damage. Most of the paramedics, fire and police are meeting those standards, except in outlying areas. Therefore the reason it’s in there is to maintain that standard, not set a new standard that now has to be met.

Wedin: What that’s really saying is (that) the county auditor doesn’t know what that position is talking about. It doesn’t match up with the surveys we’ve done of those jurisdictions. A hundred-year flood-plain planning in this county has not been done across the board. To misrepresent either out of ignorance or deliberately that these are existing standards and there is nothing new isn’t even consistent with what other proponents of the initiative are saying as we talk with them.

Grossman: It’s 100% consistent. The traffic levels are general plan standard, the 100-year flood is general plan standard, the responses right now are what the county has told the growth management committee is standard. In no case does it exceed the county standard.

Simon: But, Norm, the 100-year requirement in the county is going to be met according to county over 25 years. This initiative requires it to be met before you can build anything.

Blacketer: That is a lie. I would like to respond to that because this is one of the things that has been said over and over in this campaign, and it’s garbage. What the initiative says is, as new development goes in it will retain on site the increased floodwaters. In other words, there’s a certain amount of runoff that goes off now in an undeveloped state. In its developed state it increases a certain percentage. All the development has to do is retain that increase on site until the peak flow has passed. You do that by retarding and retention basins. (The initiative) does not say that this county requires that every single flood control channel be brought up to 100-year standards. That was not its intent, and that’s not what it says. And in fact it was the Irvine Co. that wrote the flood control language in this document.

Simon: I’ve been accused of telling a lie. What this initiative says is that before the entitlements for development can be approved, the levels of service mandated by this initiative shall be achieved and maintained. . . .

Grossman: No.

Simon: . . . Shall be achieved and maintained.

Grossman: No.

Cooper: Do you want to respond to the actual merits of the 100-year flood?

Wedin: It’s important, I think, to know that we do have legal precedent on the books which protects downstream people from flooding. They can litigate today if that’s the case. You can have a school in Huntington Beach today with kids in it, but if you develop on that same piece of property you’ve got to have a retention basin under this development proposal.

Cooper: A median-price home in Orange County is now the highest in the United States. Will passage of Measure A raise or decrease the cost of housing and rentals in Orange County?

Catalano: It won’t affect them, Jim. What you charge on the market for a house is what the market will bear. The only way you get affordable apartments and affordable houses is if some government stands up and says, ‘You’ll get less from what the market will bear.’

Sims: It will definitely increase the cost of housing. There are numerous costs which are required to be paid by developers to develop in the future under the terms of the initiative, and these costs are going to be passed on to the consumer. The costs are going to be probably allocated on a per-unit basis, and it will make it more and more difficult to provide housing for people at the low- and moderate-income levels. As of today, only 24% of the people living in the county can afford to buy a house at the median household value.

Cooper: If it passes, then what?

Sims: A smaller and smaller percentage of the population will be able to buy.

Catalano: What she’s arguing is that after this passes the developer will have to charge $400,000 for a house rather than 350 or whatever the starting point is, but that they won’t charge that high a price if this doesn’t pass. If they charge the higher price and it sells there is nothing that would keep them from charging that high a price anyway. Crystal knows, she’s been in the business of low-income housing long enough. The only way to get someone to sell a home below what you can get for it in the market is to tell them they have to.

Cooper: What effect will it have on housing and rentals . . . not necessarily just affordable.

Blacketer: It won’t have any effect over the long term.

Simon: Of course it will. It’s going to restrict the supply of housing. That’s what this is all about. If you restrict the supply of housing, then housing becomes more dear. It’s an elementary principle of economics that price is a function of supply and demand.

Grossman: It doesn’t necessarily restrict it because it sets standards to be met with well-planned development. It restricts the supply of poorly planned housing. Well-planned housing will still go in. . . .

Simon: We have the best planned housing in the United States today.

Grossman: And it doesn’t work. Try driving the roads. What’s wrong then?

Simon: What’s wrong is that we don’t spend the money that we need to spend, OK? All of us, not just the new home buyer. We can’t load all the cost of the infrastructure we need in this county in this state on the new home buyer. They can’t afford it. You will get to the point where we’re getting now, where houses are beyond their reach so they can’t be sold. The fees today are $30,000 a unit. In the FCPP (Foothill Circulation Phasing Plan), 10,000 of that is for road systems. And there’s nothing wrong with the FCPP. The FCPP is going to work. It just costs a lot of money.

Cooper: You’re saying it’s inescapable that housing and rentals are going to go up if it passes.

Simon: Sure.

Grossman: I’d love to see a study on some other community where it shows that. Again, the impartial studies done show that this doesn’t happen. The free market, as Ray has pointed out, will keep the houses selling for what they will go for.

Sims: Virtually all growth-control measures, with very very few exceptions, usually exempt housing for low-income households, senior citizens, etc. This initiative does not. The drafters had a perfect opportunity to encourage the development of affordable housing by exempting it out of the initiative and they chose not to do so.

Catalano: Every other growth-control in fact has a numerical cap or a computation for how many units you can build. Those are true growth-controls under which you have to have that kind of exemption or they wouldn’t stand the test of law. This does not put a cap on development. This says you can build as many units as, in fact, held consistent with road capacity.

Cooper: Providing they meet their standards for the . . .

Catalano: That’s right. So that’s why we don’t have that. Is it any better for poor people or middle income people to be stuck on roads than rich people?

Wedin: I don’t think you have to be a brain surgeon to figure out that if it costs more to build something, fewer people are going to be able to qualify to buy it or rent it. And what I’m concerned about is my wife and I have two children, and they’re growing up in this county and they like this county. What we’re communicating to these young people, and not just people of our childrens ages but what I’ll call politely middle-aged people also, is that fewer and fewer of them are going to be able to live in this county because we’re going to price them right out of here. I think that’s absolutely the wrong message to send.

Cooper: Would Measure A’s environmental requirements improve or hurt the local quality of life?

Wedin: You’ve got to look at the environmental issue through not only a quality-of-life perspective, but also what it’s going to cost to achieve. Are (voters) willing to pay for the level of park service that’s talked about? Are they willing to pay for non-life-threatening police, fire and paramedic responses at the level that’s talked about. Are they willing to pay for 100-year flood plain standards?

Cooper: Are you saying that if Measure A passes, would it help the quality of life or hurt?

Wedin: I don’t think it necessarily hurts it if we do a good job of solving or bringing about a sensible solution to the problem. If the initiative is defeated on June 7 and business is as usual, the environment would be hurt.

Grossman: You’ve got total agreement there. And that’s the main reason why I think it’s imperative that it pass because the clear message would be to do business as usual, and the quality of life in this county is demonstrably getting worse. The intent again is a base line, or a base line in the county where it is right now.

Wedin: Business as usual simply can’t happen anymore.

Blacketer: Can I get your guarantee on that?

Wedin: The issue is we’ve got federal requirements today for traffic-demand management on businesses in the South Coast air quality basin that we didn’t have even a year ago. So to say that business would be the same as it’s always been is really perpetrating a fraud on people because that’s just not correct. It also assumes that elected officials in this county and all the city councils and all the school boards and the county supervisors don’t give a twit about the quality of the environment, and I just don’t believe that’s true.

Simon: There’s another aspect to this. Whose quality of life? What about the quality of life of the young family that wants to live here? It can’t if this initiative passes. The median age in this county is 32 years old. We have 206,000 children or young adults between the ages of 17 and 21 in this county that have to have some place to live. So we have to look at whose quality of life. We can’t keep it the way it was.

Blacketer: I grew up in this county, and it has changed drastically. I can remember in the early ‘60s people talking about the booming county economy and what growth would do and how important it was to have housing units so that our children, me, could afford to live here. And now we’re saying that my children should be able to afford to live here. Well, we’ve gone for at least 25 years, and maybe 30, with no growth-control initiative, no growth controls at all. Business as usual is the developers ask and they get, and we don’t have housing for most of the people in this county, we have housing for the rich.

Grossman: I’ll agree. If you look at the Chapman study again, take his base line projection, just that one. Average house price in Orange County in 15 years will be $330,00. Nobody can afford that. That’s going the way we’re going. Those people 17 to 21 can’t afford that.

Catalano: My good friends on the opposite side can’t, on one hand, argue the market and then, on the other hand, argue it’s going to be suspended if this doesn’t pass. We all know what the behavior of all of us in the market is. We are obliged by market theory to get what the market will bear. That’s what developers have done in the past, God bless em. That’s what they’ll do in the future because that’s what they’re in business to do.

Cooper: There’s an old saying in the Navy that says, “Pull up the ladder. I’m aboard.” Are we saying in this, by making it more restrictive for housing, that we’re going to pull up the ladder. I’m aboard?

Grossman: That would have been so easy to do. A housing cap could have done it. More restrictions on what can be built. Clearly there is not a single housing cap put on here. We are requiring balanced growth. That is it. There is no cap at all. There is no pulling up of any ladders.

Wedin: Over 60% of the growth in this county is naturally generated. These are children that come from this county and to indicate that people are moving in as the major source of population increase is just not accurate. Also to indicate that cities and the county have not exercised any growth management at all is a total distortion of what the actual facts are.

Cooper: The implication in this is that institutions we already have in place, the county Planning Commission, the county supervisors, all the cities, all the city planning commissions, that those institutions have failed. They have not managed as well as you’d like them to manage and you are replacing that institution with a new institution called the initiative.

Catalano: I think that’s unfair to say that they’ve always failed. The fact of the matter is that local government changes very quickly in the nature of what it considers to be important. We’re out of time, however, and we can’t afford to have a low concern for this kind of thing. And so, therefore, all this initiative does is, in fact, tells local officials that it’s no longer in your discretion to put more people on the roads than the roads were designed to handle. That’s all it does.

Simon: Nothing has been done perfectly, but we have a problem. We have an increasing population. My top priority is not to drive 65 miles an hour at 5 o’clock on the freeways. My priority is something else, which is to provide for this increasing population--jobs, houses and transportation. What this initiative does is, it takes all flexibility away. Remember, if initiatives are passed they’re locked in stone. And the only way you can get rid of it is to go back to the voter, have another expensive campaign if it doesn’t work. You’re taking power away from local government.

Wedin: The interesting thing is that we have very stringent regulations that local government at all levels has to comply with. And I haven’t seen any reluctance on the part of our legal community to adjudicate any and all the time that they feel there is one iota of variance from what our laws are. We have very strict environmental laws in this state. I guess what I’m saying is that we do have very sound systems in place. We have very dedicated people that donate huge amounts of their time, who are elected by literally hundreds and hundreds of thousands of people around this county, who I don’t think have failed in their responsibility.

Cooper: If this fails, then we’re left with what we have now--the planning commissions, the city councils, the Orange County Planning Commission and the supervisors. Are you disenchanted with that or are you willing to go with those instrumentalities that are already in place?

Sims: The fact that the initiative is on the ballot should send a message to politicians that something needs to be done and that growth needs to be planned, and one of the most significant ways in which growth needs to be planned is to ensure that affordable housing is provided and will be provided. I don’t think that adequate amounts of housing for people from zero to 80% of the median income have been provided in the past, and I hope that more units will be provided.

Cooper: You’re saying that new messages are going to be sent out, no matter what happens.

Sims: I think that new messages have to be sent out.

Catalano: I’m a city councilman (in Irvine). I can tell you what happens. When citizens get angry, they’ll come down and complain, and when citizens are there complaining and are prospective voters, you’ll respond. And then the citizens go away and you lapse back into old habits. It’s the history of government since we’ve ever instituted democracy. And that’s why in California, particularly, we’ve had reform movements which have said governments have discretion to do certain things and they don’t unless they come back to us the people. This problem in Orange County has gotten serious enough that I think we should say to local officials, this problem is no longer something we want you to have discretion to manage; you cannot go on fouling our roads simply because it’s easy for you to do.

Cooper: Ms. Blacketer, you’ve been on that Planning C o mmission. What about it? Are you saying your instrumentality wasn’t adequate for the job?

Blacketer: It depends on what your philosophy is and what you feel is important. These guidelines that we are asking to be adopted and made an ordinance through this initiative are in the county general plan right now. However, the county Board of Supervisors and the county Planning Commission say that there are overriding considerations and ignore these base lines. They do not apply them.

Cooper? You think that they’re needed then?

Blacketer: Because they are only goals and policies, there is no way to make a decision maker do them unless they’re adopted as an ordinance, and that’s what this initiative does; it gives them lots of flexibility to implement it.

Wedin: I was told by a proponent of Measure A just a week ago, this is not a traffic issue, this is not a growth issue, this is a political power issue. We don’t like the way we’ve been treated. We’re going to change the system.

Catalano: I was told the same thing by an opponent.

Grossman: In fact, it is a measure written and, in fact, demonstrably does improve traffic.

Cooper: And you don’t feel that this would hamstring the existing Planning Commission?

Grossman: No. It’s an extremely flexible measure. There are all kinds of options left for them to handle this. The FCPP, as an example, is one they’re already using that can serve as a model.

Cooper: A clause in Measure A stated a legal suit will be filed immediately if it passes. What are the implications for the county if a long and protracted lawsuit develops? Will the county be in a growth limbo?

Simon: I think the county is going to be in a growth limbo if the initiative passes, whether there’s a lawsuit or not, because it’s going to take a considerable period of time for the county to get the rules in effect to implement it.

Grossman: It is, in fact, law as soon as it passes. The county already has a growth management committee, part of whose charter is to see how to implement it when it passes. It will not be in limbo at all. The county has already taken steps to implement it.

Cooper: Since developments build roads, infrastructure and other public improvements, and this initiative will slow this down, then how will these public improvements be funded and built in the future since there is no funding mechanisms in the initiative?

Blacketer: Right now what they’re being required to do, in most cases, is build the roads within the development area and only widen the road, as it borders their project. They don’t really build new infrastructure to serve all people. They serve their development within it. Without the initiative, that will continue, and we are not seeing the road being completed in the south county, and I think we can drive down Moulton Parkway and end up at a dead end and see that.

Wedin: I really hate to add ammunition to what I think may be the lawyers’ fair employment and longevity act, but the natural reaction is that we are establishing standards that are going to be extremely difficult, if not impossible, for local agencies to meet. And if you can’t achieve and maintain those standards after five years, then you’ve got to do some things and that involves shutting down the issuance of building permits.

Cooper: Our time is almost up now and I want to thank you for your comments. More information on Measure A may be found in your Orange County voter information pamphlet and you can get a free copy from the registrar’s office. So please remember to vote on June 7.