Valley Commentary : It’s the Neighbors’ Fault That Quake Bond Failed : Los Angeles County’s counterparts in the Southland defeated Proposition 1A, which would have helped the Valley repair damage. Yet if there was ever a time California needs to pull together, it’s now.

With the June 7 defeat of the state earthquake bond proposal, Proposition 1A, the city of Los Angeles lost more than $55 million in funds to help the San Fernando Valley repair some of its damage and to retrofit freeways and bridges.

The defeat was a surprise to many. A similar bond issue, Proposition 122, had passed statewide easily in June, 1990, following the 7.1 San Francisco earthquake. We also had a temporary half-cent sales tax increase then to cover those losses.

Shortly after the San Francisco quake, the Federal Emergency Management Agency estimated that an 8.3 earthquake in Los Angeles would cause $17 billion in damage. But a 6.8 quake here caused more than $20 billion in destruction.

I intended to begin this article by giving the Bay Area hell for taking our money to fix up after their earthquake and then refusing to pony up when it’s our turn. I was going to note that they had voted down the proposition just two days before scientists said there is a 90% chance of a catastrophic quake in the Bay Area between now and 2020, while our chance of a similar disaster is estimated at only 60%.

That was before I studied the voting returns.

San Francisco and Alameda counties supported the bonds by higher percentages than Los Angeles County. The other Bay Area counties--Marin, Sonoma, San Mateo and Contra Costa--were right behind Los Angeles in their percentage of “yes” votes. They were among the few counties in the state that gave 1A a winning margin.

Then I thought about giving the rest of Northern California hell for not caring about Southern California. Well, it’s true that Lassen, Glenn and Tehama counties returned fewer than 20% “yes” votes for 1A. But Santa Cruz County had 48% voting for it--more than San Diego County. Yolo County had 40% voting for it--more than San Bernardino County.

So, whom can we blame? Where did Proposition 1A really fall short? We have only to look in our own back yard.

Orange and San Bernardino counties had only 39% in favor; Ventura County, 42%; Santa Barbara and Riverside counties, 44%.

Can our neighbors be unaware that Southern California’s earthquake threat affects them as well? I think not.

Simi Valley in Ventura County suffered considerably from the Northridge quake. Anaheim in Orange County has applied for FEMA funds to put the “Big A” sign back on its stadium. Only two years have passed since the 7.5 Landers and the 6.6 Big Bear quakes. Bakersfield and Long Beach have both had monster quakes this century. They all know our entire region is in danger.

I have to conclude our neighbors in the exurbs aren’t singing “I Love L.A.” They clearly seem to care about us and our current plight less than the folks in the Bay Area and other northern counties.

Yet if there was ever a time California needs to pull together, it’s now.

The easy response to our neighbors’ lack of support is to say, “OK, guys, just wait until you need money. We’ll show you!” But to do so would make us more like Balkan countries than neighboring counties of the same state. We would be failing them as badly as they’ve failed us.

The responsible question to ask is, “Where do we go from here?” Although relief money is coming from various sources, the total appears to fall well short of what it will take to rebuild. The problem could be especially critical in places around the Valley that are suffering from a “ghost town” phenomenon because many owners of already devalued apartment houses desperately need government-backed loans to repair their inadequately insured buildings.

The Legislature and the governor are going to have to bite the bullet--soon.

The quickest solution would be for the Legislature to pass a temporary statewide sales tax increase similar to the one it enacted after the San Francisco quake. That’s not an enticing prospect for an elected official, especially in an election year.

Just imagine what the folks at home are going to tell those legislators from counties in the far north where 1A got less than a third of the vote. Even Humboldt County, which had a 7.0 earthquake in 1992, gave it only 31% of the vote.

There’s still time for the Legislature to put a reworked bond issue on the November ballot. The earthquake bonds passed the Assembly 55-15 and the Senate 27-11 on its way to the June ballot. But someone’s going to have to campaign for it once it’s there. Who’s going to stand up in Orange or Ventura county and say, “We’ve got to have this”? No one running for reelection, that’s for sure.

It’s going to have to be sold to the voters by someone. Perhaps the construction industry, which would reap jobs from its passage, or local governments that will have to pick up the pieces if it isn’t passed, can beat the drum.

This past week a media watchdog group complained that the primary election received only 0.04% of the available television news coverage in its sample period. Any television coverage of the propositions was just a small fraction of that.

Proposition 1A generated no controversy. It received only token opposition. If there is a renewed November effort for its passage, supporters may have to recruit opponents in order to stir up enough controversy to generate television coverage.

Realistically, however, until our voting neighbors have a larger sense of “community” than they did on June 7, those of us in the Valley are going to dodge piles of rubble and gaze on boarded-up buildings for a long time to come.