ELECTIONS: BALLOT MEASURES : Tax Increase for Transportation Is Defeated by a Wide Margin

Ventura County voters Tuesday overwhelmingly rejected a ballot measure that would have raised the local sales tax half a cent to pay for $500 million in transportation projects over the next 20 years.

The measure--touted as a way to avoid the gridlock that has seized the Los Angeles Basin--was the first countywide tax measure here since California voters approved tax-slashing Proposition 13 in 1978.

Its defeat shows that residents are still in no mood to have their taxes increased. And the apparent rejection of four other tax measures in area cities Tuesday only reinforces that point.

Local measures in Moorpark, Fillmore, Santa Paula and Piru that would have raised taxes for schools, ambulance service, building repairs and library services appeared headed for defeat. The city measures required a two-thirds vote for approval.

“It’s a rough road to try to get a tax measure passed by Ventura County voters,” county elections chief Ruth P. Schepler said.

The sales tax needed only a simple majority to pass, she said. But with 28 statewide propositions preceding it on the ballot and carrying a price tag of billions of dollars, Schepler said early Tuesday, “that can’t help but have an effect on our local issues.”

Neil Moyer, a chief opponent of the measure, said the landslide loss shows that “you can fool some of the people some of the time, but they didn’t do it tonight.”

“Voters saw another tax that wasn’t going to be used for what it was intended, and that was improving traffic congestion and providing mass transit,” he added.

Measure supporters said the sales-tax increase lost because of timing.

“It lost because of things beyond our control. It was the economy, the length of the ballot and most importantly, the congressional budget action that caused people to vote no,” said Ginger Gherardi, executive director of the county Transportation Commission.

She said the measure had broad support, but “it was just the wrong time.”

Proponents of the measure waged virtually no campaign until last weekend, when two mailers were sent to repeat voters, Gherardi said. Fund-raising was a problem, she said.

Since approval of Proposition 13, only a few tax measures have been ratified by voters in Ventura County, Schepler said. Nearly all of those have been school bonds, and none affected voters countywide.

Measure A, which would have enabled the county to claim $130 million in state highway money and raise $500 million directly, was defeated despite widespread support.

Organizations as diverse as the Professional Firefighters Assn., the Camarillo Council on Aging and the Ventura Economic Development Assn. endorsed it.

Opposition to the transportation tax came primarily from the Moyer-led Environmental Coalition of Ventura County, which wrote the ballot arguments against it. The coalition contended that the tax would open new areas to developers and pass the cost on to taxpayers.

The Environmental Coalition also argued that Measure A did not guarantee that tax dollars would be spent to reduce traffic and congestion, and that none of the money had to be spent for mass transit.

Sixty percent of the new taxes were to pay for improvements in intercity freeways and streets, while 20% could have been used by cities and the county to repair and improve local roadways.

The measure was promoted as a way to speed work on longstanding projects such as the widening of California 126 and the Saticoy Bridge, and completion of the connector road between the Simi Valley and Moorpark freeways. Some of the money would also have been used as a local match so the county could claim an additional $130 million in state gas-tax revenue available under Proposition 111, approved by voters in June. That proposition will boost the state gas tax by 5 cents a gallon next year and increase it another 4 cents by 1995.

In early returns on the city measures, Moorpark voters were rejecting the sale of $25.5 million in bonds to pay for a new middle school and expansion of Moorpark High School. They also were rejecting a special district to finance a city-based ambulance service because of slow response times by a private company.

Voters in Fillmore and Piru were turning down a plan for a special tax to pay for maintenance and operation of the Veterans Memorial Building, which is an unofficial community center.

Santa Paula voters were rejecting a tax to pay for longer hours and new material for Blanchard Community Library.