ELECTIONS : OXNARD : Voters Thump Tax Measure

With the overwhelming defeat of a 5% utility tax increase confirmed Wednesday, an Oxnard city councilman said heavy cuts in services and personnel, including police and fire protection, are now the only alternative to avoiding a projected $2.8-million deficit.

Measure C, which would have generated $5 million annually and was designed to solve the city’s financial crisis, was rejected by almost a 3-to-1 margin, despite warnings from city officials that defeat of the measure would mean drastic budget cuts and layoffs.

“Your level of service depends on your revenues,” said Councilman Manuel Lopez, a vocal supporter of the measure who said he was surprised and disappointed at the results.

He said cuts in police and fire services are now inevitable.

Although supporters and opponents of Measure C expressed surprise at the margin of defeat, they said voters might have rejected the measure out of frustration over the city’s handling of its finances.

Opponents said that for the last three years the city has had to dip into reserve funds to balance its budget. Last year, shortly after the city found that estimates of revenue for the 1988-89 fiscal year were about $2 million too high, the city announced a surprise find of $1.4 million.

“The city administration has lost all its credibility,” said Curtis Davison, treasurer for an anti-tax group called Oxnard Residents for Responsible Government, which led the opposition to Measure C.

The tax measure received 4,101 votes in support and 11,069 votes against. Election officials said a final tally will not be announced for days, pending the count of absentee ballots.

The voter turnout was up slightly from previous ballot measure elections, with 34% of the city’s 46,643 voters going to the polls, city officials said. Two years ago, 14% of Oxnard’s registered voters went to the polls to decide on a ballot measure that made city treasurer an elected post.

The results of Tuesday’s elections were a stunning defeat for Citizens for Public Safety, a pro-tax group that spent almost $45,000 to persuade voters to approve the measure and had the support of the Oxnard Peace Officers Assn. and the Oxnard Firefighters Assn.

During the last two weeks, Citizens for Public Safety distributed 56,000 brochures, while off-duty police officers and firefighters went door-to-door to urge voters to approve the measure, warning that Los Angeles gangs would take over the city if the measure was defeated.

In contrast, opponents of the tax, including the Oxnard Chamber of Commerce, spent about $4,500 to defeat the measure. The group had no official headquarters and did no door-to-door campaigning.

Davison said he thinks each vote cast in opposition to the measure was tantamount to a no-confidence vote for the City Council.

He said the election results sent a message to the City Council, telling it to stop its free-spending attitude. Davison predicted that voters would express the same sentiment in November, when the mayor’s post and two council seats will be up for reelection.

Councilman Lopez agreed that the results seemed to reflect voter frustration with the city’s ongoing fiscal problems and said the council is partly to blame.

He said getting voter approval of any tax is always an uphill battle but that the council should have responded more often to critics’ accusations of mismanagement and corruption.

“Ninety-nine percent of the time we don’t respond because the charges are so outlandish,” he said.

Lopez said the recent surge in commercial and industrial development in Oxnard may lead to higher tax revenues in about five or six years but will do nothing toward solving the city’s current fiscal crisis.

He said the city’s financial woes were partly created in 1987 when the City Council eliminated a 4% utility tax two years before it was to have ended. He said that alone cost the city between $7 million and $8 million.

George Lauterbach, president of the Oxnard Chamber of Commerce, disagreed. He said the utility tax was only generating about $1.5 million annually when it was eliminated.

He said the city’s fiscal crisis was due to a history of bad spending decisions by the City Council. For example, he questioned why the council has agreed to spend $13 million for a new library when it is unable to raise enough revenue to keep the current library open daily.

“The message is that people are feeling that things have not gone well,” he said.

In a report to the council last week, City Manager David Mora recommended eliminating 64 positions--including 16 police officers and eight firefighters--to balance next year’s budget.

The budget-cutting measures include closure of the Carnegie Art Museum, the elimination of Sunday library hours, the cancellation of the Community Center Youth Recreation Program and elimination of a $400,000 annual donation to the Oxnard Convention and Visitors Bureau.

Had the tax increase been approved, the city would have used part of the new revenues to hire 36 additional employees--including 15 new police officers and 13 new firefighters, Mora’s report says.

Terry Dempsey, campaign manager for Citizens for Public Safety, said he believes that voters rejected the tax increase based on a gut reaction.

“It’s a natural instinct for us not to like a tax,” he said.

Although his group had urged voters to approve the measure to retain current levels of police and fire service, Dempsey said the defeat does not reflect a rejection of the city’s police and fire departments.

He said voters probably rejected the tax increase because they disagree with the way the council has been handling its finances. Dempsey, a professional campaign manager who worked as an aide to 1988 presidential candidate Alexander Haig, credited opponents of the measure for playing to voter frustration with the council.

However, he said there is now a “feeling of impending doom” among police and firefighters who fear the council will order layoffs in their departments to offset a deficit.

Several of the measure’s biggest supporters--including Mayor Nao Takasugi, Bill Lewis, president of the Oxnard Peace Officers Assn., and Bill Gallaher, president of the Oxnard Firefighters Assn.--did not return phone calls Wednesday. Dempsey speculated that some of Measure C’s supporters were laying low after the vote.