Measure J Beaten Badly in Stinging Defeat for Gates : Election: O.C. voters reject jail tax by nearly 3-1 margin, leaving no funds to correct overcrowding. Sheriff vows to bring issue to the ballot again.

Orange County voters handed Sheriff Brad Gates a stinging defeat Tuesday as they overwhelmingly voted against Measure J, the half-cent sales tax increase for new jail construction intended to ease inmate overcrowding.

Returns showed the measure losing by a margin of almost 3 to 1 in an election that pitted the sheriff and other law enforcement leaders against Anaheim’s mayor and a coalition of residents living near the proposed site of the regional jail near Anaheim Hills.

“People who voted in this election are people who left their houses in the morning determined to vote against a tax increase,” said Anaheim Mayor Fred Hunter, Measure J’s most outspoken critic.

“This vote is a tax issue, just a tax issue,” he said. “By their vote, people are saying that they do believe there are cost-effective options available for law enforcement.”

An obviously disappointed Gates vowed to bring the issue before the voters again, perhaps as early as this November or June, 1992.

“It took the transportation people three times,” he said, referring to Measure M, the half-cent sales tax increase for transportation improvements that was approved last November after voters had rejected it twice before. “Oh sure, we’re going to try again. This issue is not going to go away.”

Gates said he believes the Measure J effort was hurt by a weak local economy and by Gov. Pete Wilson’s recent announcement that he would seek higher state and local sales taxes to offset a state budget shortfall. He also said opponents of the measure were simply motivated by not-in-my-back-yard, or NIMBY, politics.

“I think it all backs down to NIMBY,” he said. “I don’t think anybody is kidding anybody on that issue.

“The arrow is now pointed at Fred Hunter and those people to present some alternatives of their own,” the sheriff said.

Measure J’s defeat will leave county officials with no immediate solution to the decade-long political logjam that has kept them from building extra jail space to relieve overcrowding in the county’s five-jail system. The jails frequently hold about 4,400 prisoners, although they were designed for 3,203.

Absentee ballots represented a large part of Tuesday’s voting, setting a record for a special election, according to Registrar of Voters Donald Tanney.

Had it passed, Measure J would have increased the county’s sales tax to 7% and raised an average of $343 million annually over 30 years, according to some estimates. The revenue most likely would have been used to build a 6,720-bed jail on 2,512 acres in Gypsum Canyon, located just east of Anaheim Hills. The land is owned by the Irvine Co., which plans to build an 8,000-home development in the canyon.

Measure J revenue also would have been used for a variety of other criminal justice facilities proposed by about a dozen cities and county agencies.

Opponents of the measure gathered Tuesday night at Hunter’s law offices in a renovated Victorian-style house in downtown Anaheim across the street from City Hall.

They cheered when early returns showed the measure going down by a large margin.

“A vote ‘no’ is not anti-law enforcement,” Hunter said. “A vote ‘no’ is a vote against taxes.”

Meanwhile, at the Irvine offices of political consultant Eileen E. Padberg, about a dozen of Measure J’s stalwart supporters began to look forward to another attempt.

“It’s at least a start, and you have to start somewhere,” said Carolyn L. Charkey, president-elect of the Mothers Against Drunk Driving local chapter.

This election, she said, laid the groundwork for a campaign to educate voters about the need for more jail space. However, she added, supporters will need about twice as much money as the $180,000 raised for this campaign.

“That’s why we need to raise more money, to talk to people, to get the message down,” she said. “All our research shows that the more people learn about it, the more they support it.”

The debate that culminated in Tuesday’s election dates to 1978, when a federal judge ruled that overcrowding had created unconstitutionally cruel conditions in the Central Men’s Jail. After a cap was imposed on the population at the jail, Gates instituted a number of policies to relieve overcrowded conditions, including the release of some inmates before their sentences were completed.

Meanwhile, the Board of Supervisors has been stymied by political and financial obstacles in solving the jail crisis. Although the supervisors recognized the need for more jail space, they could not agree on where to build a new jail or where to get the funding. Supervisor Don R. Roth and Board Chairman Gaddi H. Vasquez have opposed building a jail in Gypsum Canyon, while Supervisors Harriett M. Wieder, Roger R. Stanton and Thomas F. Riley have supported it.

On Tuesday, Roth said the election’s outcome showed that voters want county supervisors to find a solution with the resources they now have.

“I think what voters are saying is, ‘Yeah, we have a deep concern about law and order and about overcrowding, but enough is enough. Use your money that you already have . . . use your existing resources in a better manner,” Roth said.

Wieder, who also chairs the Regional Justice Facilities Commission, which was created to place Measure J on the ballot, said supervisors will have to try again.

“Our county residents want tough judges, they want people put away,” she said. “The problem is, they just don’t want to pay for it.

During the last few weeks of the election, the campaigns for and against Measure J became increasingly heated, with opponents saying the measure would be tantamount to handing Gates a “blank check,” and the sheriff countering that the opposition was spurred by little more than NIMBY.

Gates’ Committee to Keep Criminals in Jail spent most of its contributions to send out mailers to about 85,000 selected voters, appealing to their fear of crime by reminding them that 850 inmates were being released from jail prematurely each week because there was not enough room at the jails.

Opponents of Measure J managed to raise only about $11,000, but they worked hard to attack the way the ballot measure was written. For example, Measure J never specified how revenue would be used, although the Board of Supervisors later voted 3 to 2 to make the proposed Gypsum Canyon jail the No. 1 priority.

Both sides competed to gain the endorsements of various groups, with Gates winning over the several mayors and city councils, police chiefs and an assortment of law enforcement groups.

Opponents of Measure J won support from a number of city councils, the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Assn. and the Orange County Bar Assn.

On Tuesday night, as both camps prepared to pack up their parties when returns showed the measure going down in defeat, both Hunter and Gates said the county needed to continue working to find solutions to jail overcrowding.

Hunter suggested looking at alternatives to incarceration, while Gates said the supervisors should go ahead with plans to purchase the Gypsum Canyon site.

But Roth, who was not at either reception, said about buying Gypsum Canyon: “With what? They won’t accept wampum.”

Gates, however, said: “Without money and without facilities, this issue is not going to go away. We’ll be back.”

Times staff writers Jim Newton and Kevin Johnson and correspondent Len Hall contributed to this report.

NEXT STEP

The defeat of Measure J returns the county to the same standoff that has blocked progress in the debate over jail overcrowding, but it may finally persuade the Board of Supervisors to pursue a different site for a new jail. In 1987, the Board of Supervisors named Gypsum Canyon as its preferred site for a new jail. But time may be running out: The city of Anaheim is preparing to annex Gypsum Canyon and approve the Irvine Co.’s 8,000-home development. County officials are considering still another plan to use Gypsum Canyon. It involves condemning the property for a landfill, paying for it by raising garbage collection fees, then using a portion of the parcel for a new jail. Whether such a plan can work--or even whether it is legal--remains unclear.

EDITION TIME ELECTION RETURNS

Countywide

J--Half-Cent Sales Tax for Criminal Justice Facilities

100% Precincts Reporting Votes % Yes 47,048 26.4 No 131,173 73.6

35th Senate District

100% Precincts Reporting Votes % John R. Lewis (R) 35,027 67.5 Francis X. Hoffman (D) 13,871 26.7 Eric Sprik (L) 2,968 5.7

Elected candidates and winning side of measures are in bold type.