COMMENTARY ON COUNTY BANKRUPTCY : Raid on Measure M Is a Dead-End Road : Not only are the projects the transportation tax is funding essential, but using it elsewhere would only mean more debt due.

Orange County’s bankruptcy is a complicated, messy problem that has no simple solution.

The gross misdeeds of Orange County Treasurer Robert L. Citron aided by greedy Wall Street firms have left our county government and schools and our cities battered, bleeding and in need of emergency surgery.

Enter the political opportunists, offering quick fixes and quack cures.

The most dubious of these remedies is the proposal to raid Measure M funds instead of passing an additional half-cent sales tax to finance Orange County’s recovery from bankruptcy.

Measure M, as you will remember, was the half-cent sales tax conceived by the Orange County Transportation Authority and enacted by voters in 1990 to pay for improvements on our highway system as well as local streets and roads and urban rail.

It was designed to collect, and spend, about $3.5 billion over a 20-year period to keep Orange County moving well into the 21st Century. Its primary purpose was to allow our citizens to get to work in the morning and home at night.

Many important Measure M projects are underway right now. They include:

* Rebuilding the El Toro “Y” interchange;

* On Interstate 5, the Santa Ana Freeway, adding up to three lanes in both directions from the Los Angeles County line to San Clemente;

* On the Costa Mesa Freeway, adding a new lane in both directions between the Riverside and Santa Ana freeways;

* Three heavily utilized trains per day to downtown Los Angeles and back;

* Planning for a 21st-Century multi-modal transportation network.

Raiding Measure M funds at this time could cause possible delays or cancellation of any of these projects. Does anyone seriously want to jeopardize these successful transportation improvements?

Here’s something else the Measure M raiders haven’t told you. Hundreds of millions of dollars in bonds have been sold to finance Measure M projects. These bonds were sold on the promise that Measure M funds would be available to pay them off.

If Measure M is repealed or changed, lawyers have told us, these bonds would become due and payable immediately--and we don’t have the money.

Orange County is already short, by nearly $400 million, of the cash that is needed to pay existing bond obligations this summer.

A raid on Measure M would make Orange County’s bankruptcy problems worse, not better.

County CEO William J. Popejoy and his team of experts have put forward a well thought-out and balanced treatment that will lead to Orange County’s recovery.

It includes cuts of more than 40% in Orange County’s budget, sales of county assets, privatization of county services, litigation against the Wall Street firms and Measure R, a temporary half-cent increase in the sales tax.

The alternative will be a county without quality education, a county without adequate public safety, a county without badly needed transportation improvements, and a county with declining job opportunities and home values.

We should not destroy a well-balanced transportation network that benefits everyone.

Transportation projects should carry their fair share of the bankruptcy’s burden but they should not be its only casualty.

We should listen to Mr. Popejoy and accept the treatment that will make Orange County healthy once again.