Proposed Road Tax Advances

Despite concerns over the results of a new public-opinion poll, the Ventura County Transportation Commission voted Friday to move forward with a proposal to place a half-cent sales tax increase on the November ballot to raise money for local road and highway improvement projects.

The telephone survey of 600 residents conducted in late April showed that 60% to 68% of those polled supported the tax. The proposed initiative, which would raise $1.44 billion over 30 years, would require a two-thirds majority to pass in November.

“I have some concerns about the results of the poll not being more encouraging, given how much we’ve spent” on a public education program, commission Chairman Steve Bennett said. The commission spent $275,000, largely on an extensive mail campaign outlining the county’s transportation needs.

Still, the seven-member commission voted 6 to 1 to send the tax proposal to the county’s 10 cities for approval. County Supervisor Linda Parks cast the dissenting vote.

Five or more of the cities representing at least half of the county’s 750,000 population must approve the proposed tax initiative before the commission can ask the Board of Supervisors that it be placed on the November ballot. The commission must make that request by June 30.

If approved by all parties, it would be the second countywide sales-tax measure to appear on the fall ballot. Supervisors voted Tuesday to put a 10-year, quarter-cent tax on the ballot, with the money earmarked for acquisition and preservation of open space. The county’s sales tax is currently 7.25%.

Money collected from the transportation tax would be split, with 40% going for road and highway projects, 40% to cities for local street purposes and 20% for public transit and bike and pedestrian projects.

A significant portion of the $50 million generated annually by the tax would be used to quickly begin widening three key county bottlenecks -- Lewis Road to the Cal State Channel Islands campus near Camarillo and state highways 23 in Thousand Oaks and 118 west of Moorpark.

Based on population, the money flowing to cities would range from about $201,869 annually for Ojai to $4.6 million for Oxnard, said Ginger Gherardi, executive director of the Transportation Commission.

The commission’s vote followed some occasionally testy discussion.

After Bennett sharply criticized the format of a polling company’s report, alternate Commissioner Bill Davis accused Bennett of badgering consultant Jeff Raimundo, who made the presentation.

Davis, a Simi Valley councilman, then complained about the accuracy of a question on a public-opinion survey conducted about the open-space tax measure, of which Bennett is a proponent.

For his part, Bennett criticized the transportation staff for not including more information in the road-tax survey and for not making it available to commissioners earlier.

The report showed a sharp drop in support for the tax during six days of polling, a drop Raimundo attributed to confusion over a similar poll conducted by the Board of Supervisors and media coverage of that survey.

Before the newspaper reports appeared on April 23, 68% of those polled backed the transportation tax.

Afterward, that figure dropped to 60%. The poll had a margin of error of plus or minus 3.5 percentage points.

Eight of the nine speakers at the meeting backed the proposed transportation tax. A similar tax measure was rejected by voters in 1990 by a 2-1 margin.

“No one wants a tax increase, but there is no help from the state,” Camarillo resident Kara Partridge said. “History has shown that people will step up to the plate.”

Many of those backing the proposed initiative represented institutions or groups ranging from Cal State Channel Islands to the regional Building Industry Assn.

The only speaker opposing the proposal was Patricia Arkin of Somis.

“This is bad public policy,” Arkin said, suggesting the county instead work to recover money owed it from the state. Spending more money on roads “doesn’t relieve congestion,” Arkin said. “It worsens it over the long term” by spurring growth.