Totals Show North, West County Cities Scuttled Measure A

Voters in the north and west areas of the county dealt the killing blow to the slow-growth initiative in the June 7 election, according to complete results released Tuesday by the county registrar of voters.

In the breakdown of all of the county’s 2,114 voting precincts, final results showed that the defeat of Measure A was decisive in five large central and north county cities--Anaheim, Fullerton, Santa Ana, Orange and Garden Grove.

The initiative carried in only the five south county cities--Laguna Beach, Mission Viejo, San Clemente, San Juan Capistrano and Irvine--and in the unincorporated areas.

“The campaign was most organized and most effective in the north county,” said John Erskine, executive director of the Building Industry Assn. and mayor of Huntington Beach. “There was probably not as much time spent in places like Laguna Beach and Laguna Niguel than in other parts of the county.”

Erskine, who strongly opposed Measure A, acknowledged that it would have won if the vote had been limited to the county’s unincorporated areas--the only places in which the ballot measure would have had any legal effect.

But Erskine said he was not sure how a vote that was held only in the south county would have changed campaign strategies.

“This is a classic case of reverse disenfranchisement,” Erskine said. “It was a situation where the whole county was voting on something that only hurt or benefit--depending on your viewpoint--the south county. But I think that even in the unincorporated area there’s a mixed viewpoint about whether planning by initiative is the way to go.”

The support for Measure A in the south county was not particularly strong. San Juan Capistrano approved the measure by only 236 votes and Irvine, the largest city in that region, carried it by only 575 votes. The totals there were not nearly enough to offset more heavily populated areas of the county that rejected the measure.

Measure A, which linked new development to acceptable levels of traffic and services, was defeated 266,549 to 212,962, or 55.6% to 44.4%. Almost $2 million, which was raised mostly by the building industry, was spent to defeat the initiative. The measure’s supporters raised a little more than $50,000.

Belinda Blacketer, a leader of Citizens for Sensible Growth and Traffic Control and one of the initiative’s architects, said Tuesday that opponents of the measure had used their vast financial resources to defeat the measure.

“We were outspent 84 to 1. It’s just very difficult to counter something like that,” she said.

Blacketer also blamed voter complacency for Measure A’s defeat. She said polls that showed overwhelming support for the slow-growth initiative four months before the election had contributed to voter apathy.

“I think the voters got complacent. They saw the polls and saw no need to vote because they felt ‘it’s going to pass,’ ” she said.

Blacketer also said that the precinct-by-precinct breakdown of the election showed that slow-growth organizers need to develop a stronger and different strategy should they attempt another initiative.

“I think we have to have a better grass-roots campaign in place before we could attempt to do this again,” Blacketer said.

Four of the five large central and north county cities rejected the slow-growth initiative by more than 60%. The rejection was most dramatic in Anaheim, Garden Grove and Orange, where more than 63% of the voters in all three cities voted against it.

In Anaheim, Measure A carried in only four of the city’s 221 precincts. But those were very small precincts that combined to give the measure only a 40-18 edge. Anaheim also provided the widest margin of defeat for Measure A of any municipality in the county, rejecting it 26,279 to 14,656.

In Fullerton, only two precincts did not reject the measure outright. In one, the vote was 2 to 1 and 1 to 0 in the other. The total vote in the city’s 123 precincts was 15,282 to 8,968 against the measure.

The rejection in Garden Grove was total, with only one of the city’s 126 precincts recording a 1-1 tie. The city went against the measure 14,679 to 8,223.

In Santa Ana, the vote against the initiative was 16,002 to 9,826, while voters in Orange rejected it 14,680 to 8,324.

In addition to Huntington Beach, Fountain Valley, Newport Beach and Westminster, the five central and north county cities combined for about half of the 510,501 ballots cast.

In those nine cities, Measure A was rejected 59.3% to 40.7%, or 145,567 to 99,840. There were another 16,387 voters in those cities, 6.2% of those casting ballots, who ignored the measure.

Of the 21 cities that rejected Measure A, Newport Beach posted the closest tally, defeating it by 12,381 to 11,395.

In the unincorporated areas and the five south county cities, the voter turnout was 55.5%, whereas it only was 47.8% in the rest of the county. Still, the support in the south county was just too small to overcome the approximately 68,000 votes by which the measure was rejected in the county’s 21 other cities.

The measure was approved in the south county by a 54.8% to 45.2% margin, 85,418 to 70,289 votes. Another 8,623 voters, or 5.2% of those casting ballots in the south county, bypassed the measure.

Laguna Beach displayed the biggest support for Measure A, passing it 5,439 to 2,830. But support for the measure was not very strong in Irvine, where Mayor Larry Agran had predicted a big victory. The initiative passed 14,040 to 13,465. The approval in Irvine was the smallest in the south county.

In San Juan Capistrano, home of Tom Rogers, a leader of Citizens for Sensible Growth and Traffic Control, Measure A barely passed 3,328 to 3,092.

HOW THE CITIES VOTED AGAINST MEASURE A

Yes No Percent City Votes Votes No Anaheim 14,656 26,279 64.2 Brea 3,088 4,567 59.7 Buena Park 3,804 7,099 65.1 Costa Mesa 8,968 10,032 52.8 Cypress 3,916 4,995 56.0 Fountain Valley 5,501 7,727 58.4 Fullerton 8,968 15,282 63.0 Garden Grove 8,223 14,679 64.1 Huntington Beach 19,001 22,418 54.1 Irvine* 14,040 13,465 49.0 Laguna Beach* 5,439 2,830 34.2 La Habra 3,122 5,847 65.2 La Palma 1,181 1,788 60.2 Los Alamitos 1,119 1,287 53.5 Mission Viejo* 9,522 8,200 46.3 Newport Beach 11,395 12,381 52.1 Orange 8,324 14,680 63.8 Placentia 3,162 5,334 62.8 San Clemente* 6,157 4,552 42.5 San Juan Capistrano* 3,328 3,092 48.2 Santa Ana 9,826 16,002 62.0 Seal Beach 4,322 5,666 56.7 Stanton 1,520 2,651 63.6 Tustin 3,483 4,832 58.1 Villa Park 852 1,277 60.0 Westminster 5,988 8,979 60.0 Yorba Linda 4,400 6,517 59.7 All Cities 173,305 232,458 57.3 Unincorporated* 39,657 34,091 46.2 COUNTY TOTAL 212,962 266,549 55.6

Bold type with an asterisk indicates support for Measure A

Source: Orange County Registrar