Sales Tax Up for November Vote--Again : Transportation: Supervisors approve Measure M for the ballot, overriding a last-minute attempt to derail it.

Dismissing a late flurry of legal objections, the Board of Supervisors voted Tuesday to put a transportation sales tax measure on the November ballot, giving county voters their third chance in six years to consider the idea.

“Let’s let the people have a voice and vote,” said Board Chairman Don R. Roth, who introduced the motion to put Measure M, the proposed sales tax, on the ballot.

By day’s end, the rival camps were already considering how best to approach the coming campaign. Supporters have commissioned a pair of political consultants who expect to complete a strategy paper by week’s end, and opponents were meeting Tuesday afternoon to discuss their approach.

For both sides, the supervisor’s session had become a point of intense interest. It came after several days of heavy lobbying in which opponents tried to derail the proposal.

With two supervisors on vacation, the board’s action required the unanimous agreement of the members present. Attention focused on Supervisor Roger R. Stanton, who had long said he did not believe that Measure M should be on the ballot this year, so soon after failing in 1989.

“When the Edsel fails, you don’t bring the Edsel back six months later,” Stanton said during the board session. Stanton added, however, that he was obliged to vote in favor of putting the proposal on the ballot because the Orange County Transportation Commission had already approved it.

As a result, he said, the supervisors were legally bound to direct that the November ballot include Measure M.

“It is mandatory,” Stanton said. “It is not discretionary.”

Supervisors Roth and Thomas F. Riley, who were present for Tuesday’s meeting, both support Measure M, but they needed a third vote. Supervisor Gaddi H. Vasquez also backs the measure, but he is in Berlin for this weekend’s Los Angeles Rams game. Supervisor Harriett M. Wieder is visiting Italy and Greece.

That left Stanton with the uncomfortable choice of reluctantly agreeing to put the measure on the ballot or voting his preference--and potentially making the county vulnerable to a lawsuit by Measure M supporters.

“I resent being put in this position,” Stanton said, referring to the absence of his colleagues. “I would have appreciated the opportunity to cast a ‘no’ ballot, (but) I do not have that luxury.”

Stanton and other officials also bristled at a last-minute letter delivered to board members Monday afternoon in which opponents raised a series of questions about Measure M, calling it “legally flawed in several significant aspects.”

After months of debate, submitting the letter less than 24 hours before the board vote left officials too little time to consider it seriously, Stanton said.

The supervisors’ action cleared the way for a rematch on a transportation sales tax, which county voters have twice rejected in different forms. In 1984, voters defeated a proposed one-cent tax, and last year, a measure nearly identical to the one that will appear on the Nov. 6 ballot went down to defeat by a margin of 53% to 47%.

Many observers blamed last year’s defeat on extraordinarily low turnout in that special election, saying that a core group of anti-tax residents voted while more moderate voters stayed home. This year, with the governor’s race on the November ballot, backers of the tax are hoping that turnout will increase and the measure’s prospects will improve.

Opponents find that reasoning absurd, and predicted Tuesday that the measure will be easily beaten.

“Every instinct in my body tells me this thing can’t win,” said Tom Rogers, a slow-growth advocate from San Juan Capistrano who supported the measure last year but has taken a leading role in opposing it this time.

“Surely, people have got to be tired of this.”