Strapped Cities Seek Release From Measure M Requirement : Transportation: They want OCTA to soften the stipulation that to receive revenue, municipalities must fund street improvements at prior levels.

How sacred is Measure M?

At the request of cash-strapped cities, the Orange County Transportation Authority is preparing to advance $100 million to local governments for use in fixing potholes and for other street maintenance.

But at the same time, cities are trying to reduce the portion of their own budgets devoted to such work--a violation, some argue, of Measure M, the half-cent sales tax for traffic improvements approved by voters countywide in 1990. The cities want the OCTA advance, but they would prefer not having to spend their own funds at the same time.

Measure M, which is expected to raise more than $3.1 billion for transportation projects over a 20-year period, requires cities to continue funding street improvements at previous levels, calculated by using a base average of 1988-90 expenditures.

Cities are thus barred from supplanting their own dollars with their share of Measure M revenue for street improvements. If cities do not maintain the previous levels of spending on roadwork, they become ineligible for their share of Measure M street improvement funds. The risk amounts to millions of dollars for most cities.

The requirement for cities to keep spending their own money on roads is to ensure that Measure M results in a larger overall improvement effort, even at the level of neighborhood curbs and traffic signals.

Any attempt to weaken this requirement is wrong, according to some activists.

“What the cities are doing is cynical as hell,” said San Juan Capistrano rancher Tom Rogers, a slow-growth advocate who helped write portions of Measure M but later argued that the measure was not strong enough.

“I helped write that part of Measure M in the first place,” said Rogers. “If they get away with this, it will be another example of broken campaign promises. . . . Their word doesn’t mean much.”

But, citing a clause in the ballot measure that allows for adjustments without voter approval under “special circumstances,” La Habra Mayor William D. Mahoney is asking OCTA to reduce the so-called “maintenance-of-effort” burden, based on a city-by-city evaluation of financial circumstances.

For example, Mahoney said, each city seeking relief should have to show that its financial crisis is forcing it to cut primary services such as police and fire, or should be held to another, equally tough standard.

The proposal--which the OCTA board will vote on Monday--comes less than a month after some cities successfully lobbied OCTA for a time extension on another Measure M rule that requires cities to impose fees on new construction to help pay for street improvements needed to handle the extra traffic new development brings.

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Three cities--Lake Forest, Laguna Niguel and Laguna Hills--are in danger of missing even the new deadline, Sept. 30, for imposing such fees, according to OCTA chief Stan Oftelie.

Mahoney, an OCTA board member, faces stiff opposition on the maintenance-of-effort issue from several other OCTA board members, paving contractors who fear less work for them, and two advisory panels, including the Measure M Citizens Oversight Committee, created by the measure to monitor compliance.

But Mahoney insists that “people who have looked at this as a sleight of hand are mistaken, because it’s not.”

“I proposed this because of what Sacramento is doing to cities, not because of the general economy,” Mahoney said. “If we had known at the time Measure M was written that the state would rape the cities of their property tax money, it would have been a different situation. But nobody foresaw the state doing to us what it’s doing.”

Mahoney said he is not talking about eliminating the requirement--just reducing it on a onetime, emergency basis.

But Orange County Supervisor Thomas F. Riley, among others, said he will vote Monday to keep Measure M the way it is.

“I don’t know of anything I’ve felt as strongly about as I do about keeping faith with the voters on Measure M,” said Riley. “I realize things are difficult for local governments today, but the Citizens Oversight Committee knew of the situation and recommended against any change, and I feel they’re right to hold our feet to the fire.”

Mahoney believes his OCTA colleagues will vote to keep Measure M as is.

“If that’s what happens, fine,” he said. “I’m not going to consider it a personal political defeat. I just feel it’s something that deserves to be raised. A hardship is a hardship, and some cities--not all of them--need some help.”