Commentary : 2 Views on Sales Tax Hike for Roads : YES: Measure M allocates $450 million for street maintenance and road improvements.

Lately, a number of people have been asking me why I have endorsed Measure M, the Transportation Sales Tax. There are a number of reasons for my support, but the key is the issue of growth management.

A year and a half ago, I was vice president of the group that tried to change Orange County through Measure A, the Sensible Growth and Traffic Control Initiative. I was involved in the entire campaign from Measure A’s inception to its eventual defeat. To understand my current endorsement of Measure M, some explanation of Measure A and the philosophy behind it are needed.

The main belief of many of us creating Measure A was that growth in Orange County was out of control. By out of control, I do not mean that growth is bad and has to be stopped, I mean that growth was not being planned. The clear evidence was, and is, the infrastructure collapse being demonstrating daily. Not only has transportation become a disaster, but service such as police and fire support, flood control and provision for parks and open spaces have seriously deteriorated.

In drafting Measure A, a fundamental decision had to be made on the nature of growth and how to handle the effects. Two choices were available, growth control or growth management. Growth control would have involved limiting the amount of growth in the county to some absolute level. This approach was rejected as too simplistic and not reflective of the fact that growth is inevitable. We choose instead to attempt growth management. The intent was simply that new development should pay its own way.

In the subsequent campaign, this message of development paying its own way was lost. The measure was labeled as “slow-growth” and “no-growth.” In fact, it was clearly intended to be neither. Measure A was intended to allow the quality of life in Orange County to remain at current levels, to halt the deterioration.

As proof of our intent, I would point to the Orange County Growth Management Element. During the campaign on Measure A, the Board of Supervisors appointed a citizens committee to recommend growth management measures for adoption by the board. This was a diverse committee of developers, concerned citizens and so-called “slow-growth” members. I was on the committee as one of the representatives from the Measure A proponents. The surprising result from this group was that we were able to reach accommodation on the majority of issues concerning growth management. This committee continued to meet after the defeat of Measure A, and the Growth Management Element unanimously endorsed by the committee was adopted by the board.

There was one other aspect of Measure A that is often overlooked. In this county, many people take great delight in blaming all of the growth problems on the Board of Supervisors. The authors of Measure A realized that this was a simplistic explanation to our problems. Growth occurs not only in the unincorporated county, but in every city as well. In many areas, the fault of failing infrastructure due to unplanned growth rests with the local city councils. Recognizing this, we attempted to qualify a city version of Measure A in every city in Orange County. Measures were qualified for the ballot in five cities and passed in three.

How does this history relate to Measure M, a traffic issue? The relationship is simple and direct. Measure M allocates the sum of $450 million to be spent on streets and roads maintenance and road improvements. This is money to be allocated to the cities and county for local road projects. In order to qualify, a jurisdiction must meet several criteria--the critical one being adoption of a Growth Management Element to its general plan.

The Growth Management Element is nothing more than good planning. The plan must include the traffic levels of service for each city, phasing of new development to ensure that required services are added as the needs arise, a guarantee that new development pays its fair share toward dealing with traffic generated by that development and statement of the actual plans to deal with the traffic problems. These are not radical, but they do address the problems caused by unplanned growth. Furthermore, they guarantee that government is at least aware that there is a problem and is seeking a solution.

Some have attacked the growth management requirements of Measure M as virtually meaningless. I disagree. The requirements are where they belong, at the local level. It is up to the citizens of each city to ensure that their city councils properly study the issues and adopt plans appropriate to their cities. It is up to those of us who feel that unplanned growth is destroying our quality of life to fight the issue at the local level, at our city halls.

Measure M gives us that opportunity.