Measures in 4 Cities Prove Slow-Growth Isn’t So Quick to Die

Just when you thought Orange County’s slow-growth movement had suffered fatal blows, the Nov. 8 ballots show there is still a strong pulse.

In four cities--Costa Mesa, Huntington Beach, Newport Beach and San Juan Capistrano--intense struggles will be waged in the next 2 weeks over traffic and growth-control initiatives that would drastically change the way development occurs.

In Costa Mesa, Huntington Beach and San Juan Capistrano, the ballot initiatives are nearly identical to Measure A, the countywide Citizens’ Sensible Growth and Traffic Control Initiative that on June 7 was defeated 56% to 44%. Each of the measures would require that traffic flows meet certain standards within 5 years of the issuance of a building or grading permit. And each sets strict requirements for police, fire and flood-control protection.

The traffic-control proposal in Newport Beach, however, differs substantially from the countywide initiative. It would close loopholes in the city’s existing traffic phasing ordinance, which requires that traffic flows meet strict standards when new development occurs. Measure K contains no police, fire or flood-control standards but would require that traffic improvements be completed before developments are built.

The initiatives are on the ballots as Measure G in Costa Mesa, Measure J in Huntington Beach, Measure K in Newport Beach and Measure X in San Juan Capistrano.

Unaffected by Ruling

So far, the campaigning has been unaffected by this week’s Superior Court ruling that a slow-growth measure adopted by San Clemente voters in June is unconstitutional. That measure was nearly identical to the countywide initiative and to Measures G, J and X.

Superior Court Judge John C. Woolley ruled Wednesday that the San Clemente measure unconstitutionally requires developers to solve traffic problems that their projects did not cause. Woolley ordered San Clemente not to enforce its slow-growth measure; the City Council is still weighing the question of whether to appeal.

City officials expect that similar court rulings will be sought immediately after the elections if any of the initiatives on the Nov. 8 ballots passes.

So far, the campaigns for and against the citywide measures have resembled a reprise of last spring’s bitter battle over the countywide slow-growth initiative, with developers and real estate firms funneling thousands of dollars into campaigns to defeat them.

Proponents of the measures had been outspent $204,127 to $8,653 as of Sept. 30, according to mandatory campaign finance reports.

Caught Off Guard

The spending by opponents of Measure X caught slow-growth activists off guard in San Juan Capistrano, where city officials decided last month not to enforce the city’s $100 campaign contribution limit.

Polls commissioned by opposition groups show that voters support the citywide measures when given general descriptions of them. But a major mail effort focusing on the measure’s pitfalls is under way.

The basic theme of the anti-initiative campaigns is that the measures won’t curb traffic because they exempt state highways, don’t provide money for new roads, cost cities millions of dollars, do nothing about regional congestion and could force homeowners and small businesses to pay for costly studies before expanding.

Backers of the initiatives argue that they will prevent future road planning mistakes and ensure that public facilities will be adequate to serve a growing population. Although campaign finance reports filed by proponents of the measures indicate that their organizations are broke, supporters say hundreds of volunteers will deliver flyers and talk to voters during the next few weeks. In a few cases, the campaigns working for passage of the ballot measures will piggyback on mail sent by city council candidates.

Citizens for Sensible Growth and Traffic Control, the organization that sponsored Measure A on the countywide ballot in June, has provided advice but no other support to most of the campaigns seeking passage of the citywide slow-growth and traffic-control ballot measures.

“After the June election and the fight over Measure A, people kind of lost their enthusiasm,” said Tom Rogers, co-founder of Citizens for Sensible Growth and Traffic Control. “The voters still want to do something, but I think they’re having a hard time trying to decide which way is up.”

Costa Mesa

“We are doing what we can, considering that we have no money,” said Diane Goldberger, chairwoman of the political action committee supporting Measure G. “We’re sending out mail in batches. We’ll have about 20,000 pieces of mail sent out to homes of registered voters that will combine our stances on all of the candidates and the issues . . . and we ask for money.”

Goldberger said her group, the Costa Mesa Residents Political Action Committee, is supporting council candidates John V. (Jay) Humphrey, Sandra L. Genis and Scott Williams. “We have signs being made right now,” she said.

The No on G campaign has a professionally run telephone bank operated by the Nason-Lundberg political consulting firm.

Costa Mesa Mayor Donn Hall, the most visible critic of Measure G, said the measure is “unworkable. . . . Costa Mesa’s traffic problems are primarily caused by inadequate freeways. Measure G has absolutely nothing to do with freeway traffic.”

But Genis, a council candidate supporting Measure G, said it “ensures that traffic flows freely through intersections before new developments are approved.”

Huntington Beach

Shirley Long, chairwoman of Huntington Beach Citizens against Measure J, said polls show that most voters in her city aren’t even aware that there is a citywide slow-growth initiative on the Nov. 8 ballot.

“We have just started releasing our first campaign brochure,” Long said. “It talks about specific questions concerning Measure J and answers them from our perspective. It’s an educational piece.” Without such mail, said Long, “there’s no question that Measure J would pass.”

George Young & Co., a Los Angeles-based political consulting firm, is directing the No on J campaign. The group’s first glossy brochure, distributed door-to-door by $7-an-hour couriers, says the measure would cost the city $250 million to implement.

Geri Ortega, a Huntington Beach planning commissioner, council candidate and co-founder of Huntington Beach Tomorrow, said the group will mount a major volunteer effort in the closing days of the campaign. “We have grass-roots manpower,” she said. “We’ll have neighborly phone calls and flyers.”

Ortega argued Friday that the opposition is misusing the $250-million cost figure in its attack on Measure J. She said the figure comes from a city-sponsored study of traffic improvements needed to meet the levels of service mandated by the initiative that did not focus on who would pay.

Newport Beach

In Newport Beach, part of the debate over Measure K is whether people understand it.

The measure calls for traffic delays at intersections of 35 seconds or less per vehicle at major intersections during the worst, most congested 15-minute period of an average day. But the initiative also allows use of intersection-capacity measurements, and Allan Beek, an engineer and a key proponent of Measure K, admits that he needed a meeting with a traffic specialist to understand the technical aspects of Measure K.

“Measure K would make standards so strict that traffic improvements would never take place,” according to the ballot statement submitted by Measure K opponents Bill Ficker, Ann Spencer, Bill Hamilton and Virginia Fouts. “Property owners won’t be able to make the improvements, and the responsibility will become a $40-million tax burden to our city.”

Beek and other Measure K supporters said the $40 million is a figure invented by Measure K critics and is being used unfairly in campaign literature.

“The only reason that Measure K is on the ballot at all is because of the loopholes in the city’s existing ordinance, in which the council has the power to override, and which allows developers to escape altogether if their projects are part of a long-term development agreement with the city,” Beek said.

San Juan Capistrano

In San Juan Capistrano, where Measure X closely resembles the countywide slow-growth initiative that failed in June, supporters are mounting a last-ditch, door-to-door volunteer campaign.

They were surprised to learn from city officials that the city’s $100 campaign contribution limit would not apply to the Nov. 8 election, allowing developers and businesses to wage a costly, professionally run effort to defeat Measure X.

City officials confirmed last week that the campaign limit was not being enforced because of recent court decisions that cast doubt on the constitutionality of the ordinance through which it was enacted.

Tom Rogers, neighbor Russ Burkett and activist Philip Weisburg have been drumming up support for Measure X, but they have not collected or spent enough money--$500--to trigger mandatory campaign finance reporting requirements. Neither has the San Juan Capistrano Alliance of Homeowners, a political action committee supporting Measure X.