Irvine Voters Win Round in Bid to Decide on Road Fees

A coalition of nearly 1,400 businesses lost the initial round Friday in its legal battle to prevent the Irvine City Council from putting the question of levying fees to build roads and freeways on the ballot.

Superior Court Commissioner Ronald L. Bauer refused to stop the City Council from voting on the controversial citizen’s initiative at its meeting Tuesday night. But he set an Aug. 8 hearing date for the court to decide whether the initiative is legal.

“We didn’t get the immediate relief we wanted,” said John Erskine, executive director of the Building Industry Assn., one of three major business and land development groups that contends the initiative is illegal. “But this is still a victory,” he said, because the merits of the group’s case will be heard.

Business Group Support

The issue is a proposed developer-fee program that would raise nearly half the costs for building three freeways--the San Joaquin Hills, Foothill and Eastern corridors--by placing assessments on new homes and commercial development. The program is vigorously supported by the business groups.

The ballot initiative, which is called the Citizens’ Right to Vote Ordinance, would require that all fees and taxes assessed to build new roads and freeways be voted on by Irvine residents.

Backers of the ballot initiative contend that the fee program would be an unfair assessment on future home buyers and local consumers to support freeways that most Irvine residents do not want.

The business coalition members who filed the suit oppose the initiative because they contend that state law gives the City Council--not the public at large--the authority to decide on new road and freeway fees. If the initiative is found to be illegal after it is adopted by voters, it would be overturned.

Would Become Ordinance

If the council adopts the initiative on Tuesday night, it will become a city ordinance. If the council decides not to adopt the initiative, it will be placed on the ballot for voter consideration.

When Bauer refused to stop the council vote, but set the August hearing, he said: “The court ought not (to) interfere with the council’s lawful activities and ought not (to) refrain from acting if those council actions are illegal.”

Allowing the council to vote Tuesday “would cause as little serious effect as not to justify this court interfering, assuming this (the initiative) is an illegal event,” Bauer said. “I think we’ll wait and see what action they take.”

Councilman Larry Agran, who helped draft the ballot measure, said after the hearing that he was pleased with the outcome.

“The importance of this (decision) is that there will not be judicial interference with the city’s carrying out its duties Tuesday,” Agran said. “I don’t know what will happen Tuesday, but I’m hopeful that the integrity of the initiative process will be upheld.”

James Johnson is a spokesman for the Committee of Seven Thousand, an Irvine group opposed to the freeway-building plan and the main force behind the initiative. Even though his group won Friday’s legal skirmish, to him, the lawsuit and the basis for the upcoming hearing are “specious.”

“We as citizens are going to force the City Council to make a decision on Tuesday,” Johnson said after the hearing. “They can’t abrogate their responsibility regardless of what kind of legal cloud is hanging over their heads.”

“The very idea of trying to dissuade the voters of Irvine from voting their conscience on this issue is specious,” he said. “That’s treading on very thin ice.”

To Lyndon Calerdine, a former Irvine planning and transportation commissioner who joined the business groups in suing the city, “this is not really a setback.”

“The court will decide on the legality of the initiative on Aug. 8,” Calerdine said. “The problem is that the City Council does not know if the initiative is legal or illegal and won’t know when they vote on Tuesday.

“We just wanted this decided because we feel that the people of Irvine would be more upset if the validity of the initiative was called into question after the expense and effort of an election,” he said.