Measure R Sales Tax

According to a timetable set by transportation officials overseeing Measure R, one of the most significant projects to speed travel on Los Angeles' Westside -- the "Subway to the Sea" -- is set to go very, very slowly. The proposed rail line doesn't figure to pass engineering and environmental muster until 2013, just in time to see its biggest booster, Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, leave office if elected to a second term.

Public support for Measure R, the new Los Angeles County sales tax for highway and transit improvements passed by voters in November, remains hearty despite the recession, but there are concerns that the Metropolitan Transportation Authority is not building projects fast enough, a new MTA poll shows. The survey of 605 registered county voters found that 68% generally favor Measure R, which is expected to provide up to $40 billion during the next 30 years for highway and transit projects.

The way Judith Edmundson sees it, when she votes for Measure R on Tuesday, she'll be voting to keep her job with the Orange County Social Services Agency. Edmundson and her husband--who is also a county employee--already work two jobs each to take care of their three teen-agers and make the monthly mortgage payments on their Garden Grove home. Adding to the stress of their frantic schedule are worries that they both could be in the unemployment line in the very near future.

Orange County's flock of Republican lawmakers in Sacramento are so confident that Measure R will go down to defeat on Tuesday that they've already scheduled a morning-after strategy session. There might be one conspicuous no-show--newly enshrined Assembly Speaker Doris Allen (R-Cypress), who has not been on the same bus with the delegation on bankruptcy recovery or just about any other issue of late. The entire delegation has opposed Measure R with the exception of Allen and Sen. William A.

Library board members have endorsed Measure R, the proposed half-cent sales tax, fearing that without it they could lose some of their revenue. "The main implication is that if it doesn't pass, property tax revenues will be shifted away from the library for bankruptcy recovery efforts," Elizabeth D. Minter, the library's director, said Monday. "And the big problem with the bankruptcy is that it's already given us a cash-flow problem. We've had to defer many, many purchases this year."

In designing Orange County's recovery plan, the finance team selected Measure R as the centerpiece because it is the simplest, most straightforward and most comprehensive way to fill the $1.7-billion crater left by former Treasurer-Tax Collector Robert L. Citron's sour investments. But during months of brainstorming, county leaders and consultants also considered a variety of other financing alternatives.

The defeat of Measure R is imminent. Thus, the spin doctors are in a rush to explain to themselves--and their constituencies--how this happened. The line that is emerging seems to be: "The electorate is so angry that we couldn't reason with them. The electorate wants blood and resignations, and nothing short of a purge will satisfy them." This explanation is both false and profoundly elitist. The voters are very smart.

Orange County voters must decide June 27 whether they are willing to pay another half-cent on each dollar rung up on local cash registers, in order to escape the largest municipal bankruptcy in U. S. history. In deciding the fate of a ballot initiative dubbed Measure R, which would boost the current sales tax from 7.75% to 8.25% to raise about $130 million annually for the next 10 years, voters will effectively choose whether their county will repay its debts in full, and as quickly as possible.

In any bankruptcy, a day of reckoning comes. For Orange County, it will be the day we go before Judge John E. Ryan with our balance sheet listing the debts the county owes and the money we have to pay them. The judge will then approve a plan to distribute the money according to the law. The amount we owe stands at close to $2 billion. If Measure R fails, the total available to pay creditors over the next 15 years is approximately $335 million.

Absentee voters are the key battleground in the Measure R election. Early in the strategizing about the half-cent sales tax measure on the June 27 ballot, both sides decided to spend most of their campaign funds to win over the absentee vote, presuming it would be a crucial part of the electorate. Even so, they have been stunned by the heavy tide of mail-in voters.