Voters Favoring Slow Growth, N-Plant : But Tax-Hike Proposals Meeting Resistance Across the State

Traffic-weary Orange County voters, in early returns Tuesday, were approving a far-reaching slow-growth measure that would link future growth in unincorporated areas to the ability to provide public services to new developments.

Sacramento voters, meanwhile, were balking at becoming the first in the nation to close an operating nuclear power plant, voting instead to give the troubled but recently refurbished Rancho Seco 18 months to prove itself.

Early returns showed voters narrowly turning down Measure B, an initiative mandating the immediate and permanent shutdown of Rancho Seco, while approving Measure C, giving the plant an 18-month trial run before requiring a second shutdown vote.

Tax Hike Proposals

Across California, voters appeared to be favoring measures aimed at reducing growth, but were less hospitable to tax hike proposals in what might be called the decennial echo of 1978’s tax-slashing Proposition 13.

Inland Empire voters were defeating a plan to create the new County of Mojave--which would have been California’s first new county in 80 years.

From San Marcos to Santa Rosa, growth in the post-Proposition 13 era was being rejected by voters who had been told that development is not only a source of traffic and sprawl, but also a drain on taxpayers. New subdivisions, slow-growth advocates argued, do not generate enough in property taxes to cover all the services expected by their occupants.

At the same time, voters were generally unsympathetic to local government officials who went hat-in-hand to voters pleading for a variety of city and county tax hikes aimed at rebuilding budgets battered by a decade of reduced property taxes and shrinking state assistance.

Growth-Control Initiatives

Besides the vote favoring Orange County’s Measure A, growth-control initiatives were being approved in the Orange County communities of San Clemente and Seal Beach, while slow-growth candidates were running ahead in Santa Rosa and challenging in Riverside and San Bernardino counties.

For added local tax revenue, the most common idea was a 0.5% sales tax hike. In all, voters in 11 California counties voted on a local sales-tax supplement, and none appeared in early returns to be adopting them. Among the counties rejecting the proposal were Sacramento, El Dorado and Calaveras.

Pay Freeze

San Francisco voters, meanwhile, were overwhelmingly approving a pay freeze for city employees but were rejecting a bid to raise the city’s so-called Gann limit and hike several business taxes. Business interests had advertised heavily against the increase, which Mayor Art Agnos said was critical to erasing a $179-million budget deficit projected for next year.

The Gann limit, written by tax crusader Paul Gann and approved by voters in 1979, caps both state and local government per-capita spending at 1979 levels, adjusted for inflation. Elected officials recently started asking voters to raise the limit to compensate for growing school enrollments and jail populations and other unforeseen developments.

Rejecting Arena

San Jose voters, in early returns, were rejecting plans for a new $100-million, 20,000-seat sports arena, part of Mayor Tom McEnery’s ambitious effort to develop that city’s burgeoning downtown area.

Santa Clara County voters approved a proposal to create a new local Corrections Department to replace the county sheriff in managing the overcrowded and often-criticized county jail.

The Rancho Seco vote would be a difficult loss for the nation’s anti-nuclear activists, coming two weeks after they thought they had gained momentum with the decision of New York officials to close the $5.3-billion Shoreham nuclear plant even before it formally opened.

The Sacramento ballot was seen as the first opportunity to actually win a nuclear-shutdown election. Such a win, after 13 straight losses across the country over the last 16 years, was desired by other activists to build additional momentum for a similar shutdown ballot measure planned in Massachusetts this November.

More than $1 million in campaign contributions poured in from the nuclear industry to support Rancho Seco. Plant opponents, on the other hand, reported receiving only about a quarter of that amount as of the end of the most recent disclosure period mandated by law.

Anti-nuclear groups, led by Sacramentans for Safe Energy, ignored the standard anti-nuclear shibboleth of safety to focus the campaign on economics--especially the $400 million spent to improve a plant that still did not have the confidence of its own general manager.

Voters, however, were being swayed by Rancho Seco supporters, who argued that it would be foolish to spend $400 million on refurbishments, then close the plant before finding out whether the improvements could actually transform it into a profitable operation.

Rancho Seco, historically one of the nation’s least-reliable and most-troubled nuclear plants, was ordered closed by federal regulators in December, 1985, after a near-accident stressed the nuclear reactor vessel and released radioactive steam into the atmosphere.

40% Capacity

The plant, 25 miles southeast of Sacramento, remained closed for the next 27 months as engineers labored to clean, modernize and improve it. Rancho Seco began a slow climb back to full power last March; it is now running at 40% capacity.

Its owner, the Sacramento Municipal Utility District, says it spent $400 million improving the plant during the shutdown, although half that sum went for routine operating costs. About $72 million was actually spent on “major” improvements, most of which were mandated by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission for safety reasons, not to improve plant performance.

In the Inland Empire, efforts to turn much of the vast high desert into “Mojave County”--so big that ballots had to be flown in to the county seat--got early support from within the border of the proposed new county, but that lead was being erased by the much larger volume of votes from urban San Bernardino.

Mojave County Campaign

Leaders of the Mojave County campaign said high desert residents have been generating more in taxes than they have received in services from San Bernardino County.

Opponents of Orange County’s Measure A, considered one of the most far-reaching growth-control measures proposed in the United States, spent nearly $2 million--33 times the $48,000 raised by supporters. The money, most of it from the Irvine Co., Mission Viejo Co. and other developers, fueled a boisterous campaign that deluged voters with mailers and commercials.

Laguna Beach, Costa Mesa and Huntington Beach will vote on slow-growth initiatives in November; San Juan Capistrano will do so next April.