O.C. Residents Have Own Ideas on Ending Crisis : Recovery: Moneymaking schemes include lottery, freeway billboards and dog breeding. So far, the county isn’t buying.

Puppies, freeway billboards and lottery tickets have at least one thing in common: They are being offered by Orange County taxpayers as possible solutions to the county’s financial mess.

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Dozens of unsolicited suggestions have poured into county offices since December, when the county filed for bankruptcy in the wake of $1.7 billion in losses in the county’s investment pool.

Among the proposals:

* Rosemary Jackes of Laguna Hills says the county could reap big bucks by selling billboard space along freeways. “How many freeway overpasses are there in Orange County? This could bring in a lot of money,” her letter states. She said the county could bring in $1.2 million a year if it rented 1,000 billboards at $1,200 a year.

* Wendy Baldridge recommends that the county set up a dog-breeding program, run by inmates at the County Jail, that would sell registered puppies to the public for $400 to $600 each. “The public’s incentive to buy from there would be a tax write-off at the end of the year, plus the guarantee of a healthy pet,” she wrote. Baldridge, who didn’t list an address, said the county could also produce trained police dogs.

* Bob Abbott of Garden Grove suggests that the county could raise money by starting its own lottery. “Lotteries have bailed out many states across the nation and it’s working,” he wrote. Tourists would buy many of the tickets, and “adjoining counties are another source of Lotto interest.” Three oranges on a scratch-off card would be worth $500.

County officials say they have looked at the ideas sent to them and have discarded most as impractical or not meeting the county’s goal of reducing its debt. They pinned their hopes on the Measure R half-cent sales tax increase that lost at the polls Tuesday.

County Chief Executive Officer William J. Popejoy has said that the county has received “all kinds of offers” from people and companies to solve the county’s financial crisis. “If you try to chase all those rainbows, you don’t get anything done,” he said.

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Yet some of the suggestions could be hard to ignore.

For instance, a group of county vendors, who sell the county everything from soup to soap, recommended diverting any increases in property-tax revenue to the county from cities and special districts. The added revenue would go to the county for about four years, while property-tax revenue to cities and special districts would be frozen at current levels.

The plan provides “enough revenue to borrow now and pay back all the creditors, keep everyone in check and keep government at a static level,” said Mary Ann Schulte, who heads the subcommittee of vendors in the county’s bankruptcy case. The vendors are owed an estimated $200 million.

Schulte said the plan would pass muster with Wall Street, which has bitterly criticized the county since Measure R was defeated Tuesday. It’s “a more secure source than a sales tax,” she said.

She said she assumes the proposal is “still kicking around,” but she has not heard anything definitive from the county.

In a similar vein, several taxpayers wrote the county to propose allowing people to pay several years of property taxes in advance to give the county money up front to avoid default.

Many homeowners would be more than happy to pay off years of property taxes in a single payment as way of providing a giant, onetime income tax write-off, said Howard R. Bartlett of San Juan Capistrano in his letter.

“It would help generate new money for the county as well as aid the [home]owners, present and future,” according to Bartlett.

If a home were sold during the period for which taxes had been prepaid, the sales price could reflect the fact that the new owners wouldn’t have to pay property taxes for a while.

Or, as Charles P. Downer of Anaheim wrote in proposing the same idea, homeowners who paid their property taxes in advance could receive a small discount. That way, the county could be helped through its cash crunch and the homeowner would still benefit.

“While private citizens would like to help, we naturally don’t want to pay more taxes or send in voluntary contributions,” Downer wrote. “But many people would be willing to pay their taxes early if they got a small discount or other consideration.”

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If all else fails, if the county is unable to find a single, good idea from the many they have received, they can always turn to an unsolicited, sure-fire revenue-raiser from LorettoBennett of Placentia: licensing cats countywide.

Although the money would help the county, she admits her idea was motivated by the felines who track through her back yard.

“Some of the neighbors’ cats leave their ‘calling cards’ here,” she confided in an interview Thursday.

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Income Ideas

Orange County residents may have rejected Measure R, but they are not at a loss for suggestions on how to solve the county’s fiscal dilemma. Some of the suggestions submitted to Orange County Chief Executive William J. Popejoy: * Lottery: Establish an Orange County lottery. * Dogs: Start a dog-breeding program with jail inmates as caretakers. Could be operated on county land using donated food. * Cats: Raise revenue by requiring cats to be licensed as well as dogs. * Baby bonds: Break down county bond sales into small amounts and sell them directly to the public. * Savings bonds: Sell an Orange County savings bond that could be used as future credit against property taxes. * Tax: Establish a county income tax. * Marinas: Sell all county-owned marinas. * Billboards: Allow placement of billboards on freeway overpasses with proceeds going directly to the county. * Advance tax: Allow taxpayers to pay property taxes three years in advance and in return be forgiven any tax increases over the period.

Source: William J. Popejoy