Decision ’96 / Key issues and races in the California vote : Ballot Issues Range From a Dump to an Airport

Should San Bernardino County build a huge dump to bury Southern California’s trash--for the next 100 years? And should voters in Ventura ban tax breaks for developers--the kind of public subsidies used by governments across California to lure major league stadiums and shopping malls?

Should Orange County overhaul its trouble-plagued government, including imposing term limits for supervisors? And should voters halt plans to turn the El Toro Marine Corps Air Station into a commercial airport?

Call it the alphabet soup of Tuesday’s election: Residents throughout the region will go to the polls to decide the outcome of a variety of ballot initiatives, among them measures L, M, S, T and U.

Measure L in San Bernardino County asks voters to decide whether to allow a landfill in the high desert hamlet of Amboy, midway between Barstow and Needles along old U.S. 66.

The county already had approved the project, called Rail-Cycle, a partnership of Waste Management Inc. and the Santa Fe Railroad, to haul trash in rail cars from Los Angeles and elsewhere to Amboy. Over time, the trash would grow to a mountain-sized pile, 400 feet tall and measuring three miles by one mile at its base.

Opponents, including a neighboring agribusiness, worked to put Measure L on the ballot, hoping to derail the project by prohibiting landfills within 10 miles of significant aquifers in unincorporated areas of San Bernardino County. The opponents, including environmental groups, contend the underground water supply could be jeopardized if toxins leak from the landfill into the underground water basin.

Los Angeles County officials look to such mega-dumps as a solution to their trash disposal problems. The county produces about 40,000 tons of garbage every day--about half of all of Southern California’s trash.

Also on the ballot in San Bernardino County is Measure M, which would allow the county to earn up to $24 million a year in revenue from assessed fees if Measure L fails and the Rail-Cycle project is built.

In Orange County, voters will decide on measures T and U, designed to repair structural flaws exposed by the county’s bankruptcy.

Measure T would establish the Board of Supervisors as a strictly policymaking body and limit members to two consecutive four-year terms. It would place day-to-day management of the county in the hands of a chief executive officer and would convert several elected positions, such as treasurer and auditor, into appointed positions.

Backers--including some county supervisors, business leaders and good-government advocates--contend the proposal would make government more efficient and accountable. But opponents, including anti-tax activists and leaders of local Republican and Democratic party groups, argue that the measure would place too much power in the hands of bureaucrats.

Measure U, meanwhile, asks voters to decide whether the Orange County Board of Supervisors should be expanded from five to nine members.

Orange County voters also will decide the fate of Measure S. The complicated anti-airport initiative would repeal a recent measure that had amended the county’s general plan to allow a commercial airport to be built when the military abandons the El Toro Marine Corps Air Station. Measure S also would force the county to set up a new planning process for the future of the base.

In Ventura, voters will be asked to consider banning public subsidies to developers, a move opponents say could inhibit Ventura from competing with neighboring cities for retailers--and sales tax dollars.

Ventura and neighboring Oxnard--each with a competing auto mall and a major shopping mall--have battled over sales taxes for more than a decade. Recently, the Ventura City Council and owners of the Buenaventura Mall agreed on a $50-million expansion project that threatens to strip the Esplanade Mall in Oxnard of its two anchor department stores.

Ventura’s Measure S targets the city’s promised tax rebate to the developer of the Buenaventura Mall. The agreement calls for the developer to pay $12.6 million up front to improve parking, roads and mass transit and then be reimbursed by the city’s share of increased sales tax revenue over the next 20 years.

City leaders defend the agreement as a good deal, but opponents call it a government giveaway.

If the initiative passes, it would be the first time in California that a city’s electorate has issued a blanket ban on subsidies to developers, government experts say.

Times staff writers Tom Gorman, Rene Lynch and Kenneth R. Weiss and Times correspondent Shelby Grad contributed to this story.