Transportation Sales Tax May Be Alone on Ballot

County officials, faced with an array of spending proposals vying for a place on the November ballot, said Wednesday that they are prepared to drop all but one in order to bolster the chances of a half-cent transportation sales tax.

“The citizens of this county have spoken loud and clear,” said Supervisor Don R. Roth, chairman of the county board. “If I wanted to kill all these proposals, I’d put them all on the ballot.”

The Board of Supervisors will vote next month to set the November ballot, and several tax proposals have been under consideration: a $390-million bond measure to build new courts, a quarter-cent sales tax for jails and a $200-million bond to buy open space have all been discussed and each has its backers.

Polls have shown that they would face a serious fight, however, and a majority of the five-member board said Wednesday that they are prepared to drop all three proposals. That would end up deferring what county officials say are serious unmet needs, but might prevent the outcome that the supervisors most desperately want to avoid: a citizens’ revolt in which all the tax measures, including the relatively popular transportation levy, go down to defeat.

“Transportation is the most important issue that we’ve faced in my nearly 16 years on the board, and we need to do whatever it takes to get this proposal passed,” Supervisor Thomas F. Riley said. “If that means we have to let some of these other things go for now, then that’s what we’ll have to do.”

County Administrative Officer Ernie Schneider agreed, saying he intends to recommend that the board present voters only with the transportation tax. And Environmental Management Agency Director Michael Ruane predicted that with the exception of the transportation tax, “we’re looking at a clear ballot in 1990.”

With political pressure building around the proposed tax, tempers flared Wednesday during a meeting of the Congestion Management Program policy task force, a group that includes all the county supervisors and representatives of several cities.

Although most officials at that meeting endorsed a November vote, some expressed doubts, sparking a lively debate.

“Who in this room is going to run the political campaign in November?” San Juan Capistrano Mayor Gary Hausdorfer asked of the 15 to 20 local leaders. “Who’s going to raise the money?”

An obviously angry Riley shot back that Hausdorfer and other Measure M skeptics were shirking their responsibilities: “Are you really saying that on this most critical issue in the county, that you, as an elected official, are not going to do anything about it?”

In an interview later, Riley said he would campaign vigorously for the measure, adding that he will withhold his endorsement and support for any candidate this fall who does not publicly back the sales tax proposal.

Ultimately the question of whether to let voters consider the tax comes down to the supervisors, and board opinion is divided. Roth and Riley strongly support a November vote, but Supervisors Harriett M. Wieder and Roger R. Stanton both have expressed reservations about bringing the measure back so soon--it failed by 53% to 47% last year.

Wieder and Stanton have indicated that they might prefer a 1992 vote, arguing that the political climate might be improved by then.

“I firmly support Measure M, but in light of the political situation, I have serious doubts about whether it would pass,” Wieder said. “I don’t believe in cramming this down the voters’ throats.”

Supervisor Gaddi H. Vasquez, potentially the swing vote, has generally been supportive of the measure, but says he has not made up his mind about whether to support putting it on the ballot.

“The most compelling issue to me is the matching dollars,” Vasquez said, referring to millions of dollars in state money that the county will lose if it cannot supply its share of transportation project funding. But, he added: “We don’t want to see this crash and burn.”

The supervisors are expected to finalize the ballot at or before their Aug. 7 meeting.