Governor Lets Jail-Tax Bill Become Law

Gov. George Deukmejian on Monday gave back-handed approval to a measure that will allow Orange County residents to vote on a proposed half-cent sales tax increase to help raise $126 million a year for much needed courtrooms and a new county jail.

The Orange County measure is part of a bill sponsored by Assemblyman Dan Hauser (D-Arcata) that also authorizes half-cent sales tax votes in five other financially strapped counties, including Los Angeles and Riverside.

All of the counties have argued that they desperately need the sales tax revenues to build added jail cells and courtrooms to handle the increasing numbers of people being prosecuted under more stringent state laws.

Orange County officials were pleased that the tax measure will go before voters but said their work has just begun.

“We are delighted that the bill became law. It’s great that we’re going to have a measure on the ballot,” Orange County Administrative Officer Larry Parrish said. “Now we have the real job” of winning voter approval.

Parrish said supervisors could decide to place the measure on the ballot as early as June, 1990. It would be the second half-cent tax proposal to go before county voters. On Nov. 7, voters will consider Measure M, a half-cent tax for transportation projects and improvements.

Deukmejian, a law-and-order governor who has backed the tougher penalties, backed off Monday from directly approving the jail tax bill, opting instead to let it become law under a procedure that does not require his signature.

Kevin Brett, Deukmejian’s press secretary, said Monday that the governor’s hands-off approach was prompted by the concerns of some critics who contend that such sales tax increases are an unconstitutional end-run around Proposition 13 because they require only a simple majority approval rather than a two-thirds vote.

“There is no question that there is overcrowding in local jails,” Brett said. “There is also no question that the governor has been receptive . . . to allowing the residents in a given county to have a vote in these issues.

“But there is also the argument that this measure is incongruous to Proposition 13.”

Orange County’s lobbyist Dennis E. Carpenter said Monday that he believes that a recent court decision overturning a half-cent sales tax hike for jails in San Diego County was weighing on Deukmejian’s mind.

The May decision by a Riverside Superior Court judge held that the San Diego tax was just an unconstitutional attempt by local government to sidestep the strict restrictions of Proposition 13.

“He’s being cautious in this case because he signed the San Diego bill and it resulted in a court holding it (the sales tax) to be unconstitutional,” Carpenter said.

Despite that lower court ruling in the San Diego case, desperate local governments have pressed on with plans for their own half-cent sales tax elections--hoping to avoid a similar fate in court by using a number of different approaches to the collection and spending of new tax revenue.

In Orange County, the level of desperation has been particularly acute as county officials try to find a way out of the legal and financial quagmire surrounding the county’s existing jail facilities.

Overcrowding in the main jail for men in downtown Santa Ana has been so severe that a federal judge has imposed a cap on the number of inmates that could be housed there at any one time. As a result, Sheriff-Coroner Brad Gates estimates that he will be forced to prematurely release 50,000 criminals this year.

Meanwhile, county supervisors have set in motion plans to build a new $700-million, 6,720-bed jail in Gypsum Canyon. The only thing lacking, they say, is the money.

And they are pinning their hopes for the money on voters approving the half-cent sales tax, which is projected to generate $126 million a year--crucial “seed money” necessary to finance new courtrooms, a juvenile hall and the Gypsum Canyon jail, east of Anaheim Hills.

Gates, who said the tax increase would translate to about $50 to $75 more each year for a family of four, acknowledged Monday that it will be tough to get a majority of conservative Orange County voters to approve the jail tax increase.

He said the jail-tax vote is further complicated by a separate election scheduled for November to ask for an unrelated half-cent sales tax increase for local transportation projects.

“I don’t think it’s popular with anyone, including me,” Gates said about the proposed jail tax. “There comes a time when you have to stop and ask yourself if your quality of life in your community and the safety of your business and home and your children is worth a half-cent.”

Times staff writer Dave Lesher in Orange County contributed to this story.

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