Volunteers Answer Measure R Call : Campaign: Grass-roots efforts for and against tax increase involve many new to the political wars.

In call after telephone call, Caroline Peterson repeated the same question to dozens of teachers--and their answering machines--Monday night. Seated beside her in a local teachers union office, three other parents and two union officials were doing the same.

“I was just calling to ask if we could count on your support for Measure R,” Peterson recited again, checking off another name on the list supplied by the California Teachers Assn.

“This isn’t something I’m used to doing,” the longtime parent volunteer conceded when she took a break from 2 1/2 hours of telephoning. “But if I feel it’s important, it’s something I’ll do.”

Peterson was ready to help her local schools in any way when she became president of the Fullerton Council of PTAs this year. But she never expected that commitment would mean staffing a phone bank in support of a half-cent sales tax increase.

Like few other issues in recent years, Measure R has mobilized volunteers from all walks of life, some of whom are making phone calls or canvassing door-to-door for the first time in their lives. Bolstered by cadres of volunteers, such grass-roots efforts by both sides have intensified as the campaign for the Bankruptcy Recovery Tax, as it is formally known, closes in on a vote Tuesday.

They include the efforts of Jim Smith, a former county employee, who was so appalled by the tax proposal that he joined forces with an activist friend and has already dropped by more than 250 homes in his Orange neighborhood to express his opposition.

“I don’t feel we should give them more money when they didn’t take care of the money they had,” said Smith, who works for a nonprofit agency in Los Angeles County. “I really feel like I need to let people know exactly what’s going on. I don’t think a lot of people know.”

Even those too young to vote are getting involved.

Briana Nelson, a 12-year-old Fountain Valley girl, began her summer vacation by getting involved in the campaign after someone left No on Measure R information at her home.

“I like helping and I don’t want the sales tax to go up,” said the eighth-grader, who sees the issue in practical terms: Her allowance won’t go as far if the sales tax increases. Meanwhile, the Orange County Federal Credit Union, which has avoided becoming involved in political issues throughout its 56-year history, recently asked its 44,000 members in a monthly newsletter to “consider the negative repercussions we may all experience if Measure R is defeated.”

“Needless to say, as the county goes, so goes the credit union,” said Errol Griffin, executive vice president of the credit union, whose organization took no formal position on Measure R but listed the problems that may occur if the initiative fails. “It’s more a matter that we support the need for people to educate themselves about it . . . we will have to live with the ramifications of that decision.”

Face-to-face encounters and other personal contact by grass-roots volunteers are critical to the success of any campaign, said Stu Mollrich, a political consultant and spokesman for the pro-Measure R group, Citizens for Economic Progress.

“They are particularly effective in terms of encouraging voter turnout,” Mollrich said. “We need them because organizations contacting their own members and encouraging them to vote is the very essence of mobilizing your base.”

Supporters consider the tax increase a critical element to quick recovery from the largest municipal bankruptcy in U.S. history, a matter of the county’s very survival. The sales tax measure, which backers say would cost the average resident about $50 a year, would raise an estimated $130 million annually over the next 10 years.

Opponents, however, say the county has other options available to overcome the $1.7-billion investment fund loss that sparked the bankruptcy. Many are philosophically opposed to new taxes and object to the idea of being asked to pay for the mistakes of elected officials.

One group leading the charge in opposition, Citizens Against the Tax Increase, has been operating out of an Irvine office donated by Mark Bucher, who had volunteered the space of his construction firm in a previous campaign. Bucher said he never hesitated to do so again.

“I felt like it was the least I could do,” he said. “I’m as frustrated as much as anyone else by how much money has been wasted.”

Judy Malcolm, one of Bucher’s employees, has been staying late herself to help, stuffing envelopes and making phone calls to voters. By “not giving [county officials] the tax increase, maybe they will have the incentive to cut where they should be cutting,” Malcolm said.

Another familiar face at the office belongs to Gary Whitlatch, a 36-year-old stay-at-home dad who said he was able to volunteer full time after hiring a nanny. Whitlatch said he’s been interested in gaining work experience in politics, but is largely driven by his belief that county officials can deal with the bankruptcy without a tax increase.

“It was easy,” he said of his decision to get involved. “I’m just philosophically opposed. Less tax is less government.”

At her 207-unit condominium in Fountain Valley, Pat Worrall has been taking her anti-tax message door to door, an effort she said is needed because the pro-Measure R campaign has a vast funding advantage over sales tax opponents.

Worrall said she has found that many of her neighbors know little about the tax measure, something she intends to change.

“Just make sure you vote, one way or the other,” she urged one neighbor who was undecided. To another neighbor who was leaning toward support of the tax she said: “Well, read both sides before you vote.”

Volunteers working to see the tax measure approved have also been getting out their message in a variety of ways. Members of the League of Women Voters, along with business leaders recruited by county Chief Executive Officer William J. Popejoy to help in the recovery, are among those hitting the debate circuit.

The Orange County Employees Assn. has been helping to lead the campaign in favor of the tax measure, by raising money, registering voters and telephoning its 12,000 members with reminders to vote.

“This is probably the most intense campaign we have been involved in,” said Tobye Lovelace, the union’s spokeswoman.

For Mary Christopher, an 11-year county social worker, the campaign has become a family effort, one that marks the first time she has volunteered for something other than school or community events such as Bobby Sox. Christopher, along with her husband, Robert, also a veteran county social worker, and her 18-year-old daughter, will be among those making phone calls this week to rally support for Measure R.

Christopher said she and her husband aren’t too worried about their own jobs, which are protected by seniority rules. Instead, she said, her involvement in the campaign comes more out of a goal to “overcome public misconceptions about county government.”

“I’ve been trying to do some education, and sometimes it’s hard,” she said. “It’s kind of human nature. We all want the all-you-can-eat salad bar. But truly, I do feel, there’s no free meal. You have to be willing to pay for what you have.”

Mary and Gerry Dunn, a retired couple from the San Fernando Valley who are worried the bankruptcy may affect their daughter’s job as a county social worker, are also getting involved. They booked a room at their favorite local motel and will be heading to Santa Ana to work on a phone bank organized by the county employees union.

“I can understand why people are really mad, and they figure they didn’t cause this problem, so why should they have to pay for it?” Mary Dunn said. “But on the other hand, it’s going to be a lot worse in the future if [Measure R] doesn’t pass.”

Educational groups such as the California Teachers Assn. have been among the busiest in support of the tax increase. Although the election comes at the busy end of the school year, teacher, parent and employee groups have found time to raise funds and organize phone and mail drives.

As the election nears, volunteers on both sides of the issue say they hope their efforts will at least get voters to the polls.

Said Bill Ward, a member of the Committees of Correspondence who’s helping organize a precinct walk against Measure R: “We feel if we can get out the vote, people will know how to vote.”

Times political writer Peter M. Warren and correspondent Shelby Grad contributed to this report.