COUNTYWIDE : Decision Postponed on Measure M List

The Orange County Transportation Authority has postponed for two weeks a decision on which highway and transit projects should be funded with more than $100 million in sales tax revenue resulting from voter approval of Measure M in 1990.

After a state appeals court upheld the measure last week, OCTA board members were poised on Monday to allocate all or part of the money accumulated since the public started paying the half-cent tax last April 1.

But after a lengthy closed session, called to discuss the agency’s response to any appeal to the state Supreme Court by Measure M opponents, OCTA board members voted unanimously to have the agency’s staff prepare a detailed package of spending options and their possible economic and commuting benefits.

The study was proposed by San Juan Capistrano Councilman Gary L. Hausdorfer, who said after the meeting that he was trying to avoid quick, short-sighted decisions that ignore long-range policy goals.

“It’s so easy for the board to get caught up in the minutiae of day-to-day operations,” Hausdorfer said. “Some of the shortcomings we have today came about because we just didn’t look down the road far enough--we didn’t anticipate things properly--and I think the voters who approved Measure M expect us to do better than that.”

For example, Hausdorfer cited plans to add lanes to existing freeways. Adding a lane is relatively quick and easy, Hausdorfer said, “but that’s no policy. It’s a Band-Aid.”

The issue was raised last week by Costa Mesa lawyer Dana W. Reed, the public’s at-large representative on the OCTA board. Reed had urged his colleagues to pump Measure M money into the Orange County economy as rapidly as possible, to boost employment in the sagging construction industry.

But some transportation officials prefer buying rights-of-way instead of pouring concrete because more money would enter the economy immediately instead of over the several years of a project.

Last week, Reed suggested that Measure M money could be loaned to other agencies if they had projects ready to build. He mentioned as one possibility the county tollway agency, which has stirred controversy with plans to build a toll road between Newport Beach and San Juan Capistrano.

But board members said Monday that loaning Measure M money to the proposed San Joaquin Hills tollway project would violate a commitment to voters that the tax proceeds would not be used for such purposes. The idea died quickly, board members said.

The debate over the $100 million in accumulated tax revenues is partly a result of the way Measure M was written. The half-cent levy is expected to raise $3.1 billion over 20 years for a laundry list of projects ranging from local street improvements to high-tech, urban rail service. But the ballot measure approved by voters in November, 1990, never prioritized the list, leaving that decision to be influenced by OCTA’s internal politics.

Indeed, OCTA board members said that Hausdorfer’s request for a full, politically neutral analysis was his way of protecting his South County constituents, since the OCTA board is dominated by North County representatives who favor projects in the northern and central Orange County.