Tax Opposition Tied to Distrust of Officials : Survey: Majority believe county leaders waste ‘a lot’ of money and pay little or no attention to voters’ views.

Opposition to Measure R, the proposed half-cent sales tax increase, is closely linked to widespread distrust among Orange County voters for their elected officials, a new Times Orange County Poll shows.

More than half of voters surveyed said county government officials waste “a lot” of the tax money they already receive from Orange County residents, according to the poll.

A majority also believe that in their decision-making, county officials pay little or no attention to the views of the electorate. And 49% say the Orange County Board of Supervisors has done a “poor” job of handling the county’s unprecedented fiscal crisis.

Orange County voters’ current distrust of county leadership, along with their historic antipathy for new taxes, pose huge obstacles to passage of the sales tax increase, said UC Irvine Prof. Mark Baldassare, who conducted the random telephone survey of 1,002 registered voters.

Supporters of the tax proposal have grown in number in the past two months, but the measure is still behind, Baldassare said. With just over two weeks remaining before the June 27 special election, voters oppose the sales tax hike 45% to 40%, with 15% undecided, the poll found. A poll in early April found that voters opposed the levy by a 57% to 36% margin.

“When voters think county leaders do a poor job, don’t pay attention to them and waste a lot of money, how do you get over 50% to vote for a new tax?” asked Baldassare, a professor of urban planning.

Otto Schirmer, 71, of Anaheim is among those who won’t. “I’m not going to send good money after bad,” said Schirmer, a retired meat processing salesman and a registered Democrat.

In the wake of the bankruptcy, Schirmer said, he no longer trusts the supervisors to make appropriate decisions with the money they control. “I have nothing but negative feelings for them,” he said.

Betty Layne, 52, of Garden Grove said she has become so distrustful of county government that she finds herself wondering whether things are anywhere near as bad as county officials contend. After acknowledging a $1.7-billion loss in its investment pool, Orange County on Dec. 6 became the largest governmental entity in U.S. history to declare bankruptcy.

“I’m not even sure there is a crisis,” said Layne, who has lived in Orange County for 25 years. “I don’t trust any of these people anymore.”

Nearly half of the voters believe the supervisors have done a poor job of managing the financial crisis, while only 12% said they think the supervisors have done an excellent or good job.

The Times Orange County polls were conducted by Mark Baldassare and Associates. The current survey was done June 2-5 and has a margin of error of plus or minus 3%.

Among the individual board members, Supervisor Marian Bergeson fared best in the poll, with 19% of those surveyed crediting her with doing an excellent or good job overall.

“I guess it’s always comforting to know that there’s someone out there who isn’t going to throw bricks at you,” Bergeson joked. She is one of two supervisors--the other is Jim Silva--to join the board after the crisis developed in December.

Supervisors Silva, William G. Steiner and Board Chairman Gaddi H. Vasquez received favorable ratings from just 11% of the voters, and only 9% said longtime Supervisor Roger R. Stanton had done an excellent or good job.

In contrast, the public’s view of County Chief Executive Officer William J. Popejoy, picked by the supervisors in February to lead the county into recovery, was relatively positive.

Popejoy was given a good or excellent ranking by 35% of the voters, up five percentage points since April. Another 33% said Popejoy was doing a fair job, with 16% ranking his job performance as poor.

“I think [Popejoy’s] been trying to do an efficient executive job,” said Bonnie Hanson, 63, of Santa Ana, who said she plans to vote for the sales tax increase. “And for heaven’s sake, the poor guy’s doing it for free.” Popejoy has declined to take a salary for his nine-month tenure at the helm of the county.

Sheriff Brad Gates, who has taken a visible leadership role during the crisis, is viewed even more favorably than Popejoy, with 51% giving the sheriff an excellent or good rating. Only 8% said Gates was doing a poor job.

But perhaps the most damning assessment of county leadership came from the 51% of poll respondents who said they believe those who run county government waste “a lot” of the money paid in taxes. Another 40% said at least some money is squandered, with only 6% saying very little or none is wasted.

Of those who think county leaders waste a lot of money, Baldassare noted, a majority, or 56%, also said they intend to vote against the tax increase.