Elections Officials Expect High Local Turnout at Polls : Politics: Key sales tax and education measures could help bring out 45% of registered voters.

Election officials expect an unusually high turnout at Ventura County polls today as voters consider a revolutionary change in school funding, a half-cent sales tax for beleaguered local governments and a school-construction initiative that would sidestep the property-tax limit of Proposition 13.

Officials project that 45% of registered voters, or about 154,000, will cast ballots--a turnout far greater than in most off-year elections and comparable to primary turnouts in presidential election years.

Polls will open at 7 a.m. at 184 sites around the county and close at 8 p.m.

While the secretary of state’s office is projecting a 40% turnout statewide, Ventura County elections chief Bruce Bradley said he believes the turnout will be higher here.

“I just think the state measures are important enough that people will vote,” Bradley said. “The half-cent sales tax and the school voucher initiative are extremely important, and Proposition 170 (a school bond initiative) could have a significant effect.”

If passed, these three far-reaching initiatives would:

* Make permanent an existing half-cent sales tax and funnel the revenue to local governments, presumably for public safety.

* Make California the only state in the nation to provide parents with tax-funded vouchers for private school education.

* Override a key provision of 1978’s tax-slashing Proposition 13 by allowing a simple majority of voters--rather than two-thirds--to approve an increase in property taxes to repay bonds for construction of new schools.

“A lot of our school bond measures that have failed would have passed with a 50% majority,” Bradley said.

His chief concern is that the four devastating fires that charred 73,000 acres of the county last week have distracted voters. “The fires have been the No. 1 story,” he said.

Yet voter interest in this election is keen in some cities not only because of the statewide initiatives, but because of an unusually crowded slate of local races and issues.

In Ventura, in particular, competition has been stiff for four seats on the City Council. Fourteen candidates, stressing the need to improve the city’s economic climate, may set records for spending and have achieved an extraordinary level of nastiness.

One set of newspaper ads features derogatory cartoons characterizing three candidates as smelly fish. Another cites a councilman’s arrest record.

In contrast, the race for three Ventura school board seats has been demure, though a year-round school proposal has raised an intriguing legal question:

Has the county registrar of voters invalidated the measure to put all 25 Ventura public schools on a year-round calendar by sending out 116 absentee ballots that do not contain the measure?

On Monday, Chief Deputy Secretary of State Tony Miller said the error would not invalidate the election unless it is very close.

“The mere fact that there’s been an error doesn’t mean the election has to be set aside,” Miller said. “But if it’s within 116 votes . . . it’s quite likely there would have to be a new election.”

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Other high-profile measures and races include a Simi Valley referendum on a proposed Wal-Mart store and a bruising battle in Moorpark among an airline pilot, a nurse and an IRS auditor for a vacant seat on the school board.

If approved, the Simi Valley initiative would allow the nation’s largest chain of discount department stores to build on a pristine hillside where city law stipulates a regional mall be built before any other developments.

Offering jobs and sales tax, Wal-Mart has spent $60,000 on the campaign. But opponents contend the store would ruin the city’s chances of attracting a major shopping mall because it would absorb the small Moorpark market.

Meanwhile, Santa Paula voters will decide whether to levy a $25-a-year property surcharge to prevent further cutbacks at the city’s 83-year-old library.

Oak Park residents also will cast ballots for three seats on the small community’s school board and for its Municipal Advisory Council. The debate has been over how to improve the highly rated school district and how the unincorporated community can wring more services out of county government.

Of the statewide ballot measures, Proposition 172 has prompted the most local discussion recently, with supporters using the disastrous wildfires to demonstrate the quality of local fire protection and the importance of keeping Fire Department funding at current levels.

Officials, including county Fire Chief George E. Lund, have repeatedly warned that if voters fail to make a temporary half-cent sales tax permanent the county could lose about $28 million next year.

That could force sharp cuts in fire protection and law enforcement, argue Lund, Sheriff Larry Carpenter and Dist. Atty. Michael D. Bradbury. The sales tax would partly make up for the $2.6 billion that local governments lost statewide last summer, when the Legislature decided to use more of the local property tax dollar to balance the state budget.

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But taxpayer groups dispute the county’s dire predictions.

They say the measure is being sold as a way to bolster law enforcement budgets; it is, in fact, labeled the “Local Public Safety Protection and Improvement Act of 1993” on the ballot.

The initiative, however, would not force local governments to spend more money on police and fire services.

Taxpayer organizations also are opposing Proposition 170, arguing that allowing voters to approve school bonds with a simply majority would lead to runaway school spending and undermine the protections of Proposition 13. That 15-year-old initiative generally limited property taxes to 1% of value at the time of sale.

But without Proposition 170, school districts argue that they must compete for an inadequate pool of state construction money or tap overburdened home builders, which raises housing prices and hurts the economy.

In the campaign’s other major education issue, supporters of the school voucher initiative say it could bring about historic change by giving parents a $2,600 voucher if they want to send their child to a private school. Supporters say the initiative offers parents a real choice for the first time.

That argument has been less compelling in Ventura County, however, since many parents say they moved here for the quality of public education.

ELECTION AT A GLANCE

* Registered voters: 342,591

* Projected turnout: 45%

* Polling places: 184

* Hours: 7 a.m. to 8 p.m.

* Election information: 654-2781. Toll-free numbers are: from the east county, 529-2060; from Santa Paula, 933-8484; from Fillmore/Piru, 524-4922; from Oxnard, 385-8600, and from Ojai/Saticoy, 654-5000.