Orange County in Bankruptcy : Popejoy Meets Tough Audience in Measure R Debate : Education: High school students quiz county CEO on need for sales tax hike. ‘It got the issue in the open,’ one pupil says.

William J. Popejoy, Orange County’s chief executive officer, met a tough audience Thursday at a Brea Olinda High School debate where he defended the merits of his half-cent tax hike proposal for solving the county’s bankruptcy crisis.

Popejoy took on public television host Hugh Hewitt, a high school senior and a popular social studies teacher who argued that they are unwilling to bestow more public funds on a county government that already has lost $1.7 billion.

Eighteen-year-old Brian Degenhardt, who said he had been “reading every newspaper” in preparation to face off with Popejoy, summed up the opposition’s stance when he called the proposed tax increase “an unnecessary way to avoid necessary change” in the way county government conducts itself.

The debate was more than academic since, as Principal Kathy Beard pointed out, most of the 400 students listening were seniors who were already 18 and thus will be able to vote on the issue June 27.

The high school debate was one of two Thursday on the controversial tax proposal known as Measure R.

Proponents of the measure encountered a friendlier crowd at a debate hosted by the Health Care Council of Orange County in Irvine.

The council voted to support the measure following the debate, which pitted Sheriff Brad Gates, a tax advocate, against Bruce Whitaker, a member of the Committees of Correspondence watchdog group and a staunch tax opponent.

At Brea Olinda High School, Popejoy counseled students that it was the responsible, “right thing” to approve a new tax because otherwise the county would not be able to pay a $682-million obligation to schools, cities and bondholders coming due this summer.

“What we need is a sales tax for is a short-term way to get over our problem,” Popejoy said, although he acknowledged that the tax will remain on the books for a decade, and perhaps longer. “There is nothing more permanent than a temporary tax,” he said.

Popejoy was assisted in the debate by two teammates, biology teacher John Zoekler and senior Anne Marie Mai, president of speech and debate. Mai told students they could afford the tax, which she said would mean that at prom time the girls would pay only 50 cents more for a $100 gown and the boys only 25 cents more for a $50 rented tux.

The captain of the opposing team was Hewitt, a Newport Beach attorney and co-host of KCET’s news and public affairs show “Life & Times.” Hewitt argued that government agencies should change priorities in spending the money already in hand rather than appeal for more tax revenue.

“There is plenty of money in the public sector today,” Hewitt said.

He suggested, for instance, that the Orange County Transportation Authority could donate some of its Measure M tax funding to help the county pay for pressing services for the poor that are in jeopardy. Measure M, an initiative approved by voters in 1990, added a half-cent sales tax in Orange County to finance transportation improvements.

On Hewitt’s team were Degenhardt and Fullerton Councilman Chris Norby, a social science teacher at the school who arranged the debate.

Some students booed Popejoy when he said Norby hadn’t done his homework when he said the county could dig out of its financial problems by downsizing, selling its assets and contracting out services, such as the county jail. Popejoy said state law prohibits private operation of the jail.

Popejoy said that while the county under his leadership will continue laying off employees and attempting to sell properties, including John Wayne Airport, those efforts won’t produce results quickly enough. The sale of the airport, he said, will take “months if not years.”

Hewitt estimated that 80% of the audience was on his side. Popejoy said he felt a strong opposing sentiment.

“I knew coming in the persuasion of the community here would be very anti-tax,” he said.

Kevin Liu, 15, a freshman, said the debate was “wonderful. . . . I don’t think anyone won. But it got the issue in the open so we have something to think about.”

In Irvine, speaking to more than 30 health-care representatives, Gates said the bankruptcy was “the most important thing the county has been through in its history” and that passage of Measure R is crucial for its recovery.

“We need to get out of this bankruptcy as soon as possible,” Gates said. “A ‘no’ vote just prolongs this.”

Gates predicted that if the bankruptcy isn’t resolved soon, home values will decrease, schools will go bankrupt and new business will be unwilling to locate in the county.

Whitaker rejected Gates suggestion that passing Measure R was the only way for the county to recover.

“Don’t you hate it when you’re given one choice, one answer,” Whitaker said. “There’s more than one way to solve a problem.”

Elsewhere Thursday, the Orange County unit of the Healthcare Assn. of Southern California, representing 41 county health care services and hospitals, announced its endorsement of Measure R.

Contributing to today’s coverage of former County Treasurer-Tax Collector Robert L. Citron’s guilty pleas were staff writers Eric Bailey, Anna Cekola, Ken Ellingwood, Matt Lait, Mark Platte, H.G. Reza, Lisa Richardson, Diane Seo, Debora Vrana, Michael G. Wagner, Peter M. Warren, Jodi Wilgoren, Chris Woodyard and correspondents Shelby Grad and Steve Scheibal. Also contributing were photographers Robert Lachman, Al Schaben, Geraldine Wilkins, Don Bartletti and Craig Wallace Chapman and researcher April Jackson.