ELECTIONS / STATE MEASURES : Officials Applaud Passage of Proposition 172 : Public safety: The county’s usually conservative voters OK the half-cent sales tax 58% to 42%. Police and fire staffing are expected to benefit, and the new county jail can open on time.

Ventura County officials on Wednesday applauded the strong local support for the half-cent sales tax initiative, which they said will help maintain current numbers of sheriff’s deputies and firefighters and allow the new county jail to open on schedule.

Officials said voter approval of Proposition 172 allows them to plan for the $53-million jail under construction near Santa Paula. It is slated to open in early 1995.

“This will allow us to hire a number of deputies to run it, so that we’re not forced to do what most urban counties have done and that is to have early release of prisoners,” said Richard Wittenberg, the county’s chief administrative officer. “By opening the jail, this will continue to make Ventura County one of the safest counties in the West.”

While other officials were relieved by the approval of the half-cent sales tax initiative, some were fretting that Proposition 172 dollars would give lawmakers in Sacramento another excuse to divert money from local governments next year.

“Proposition 172 is a help, but it’s not the final answer,” Deputy Fire Chief Bob Holoway said. “The big question is what’s going to happen next year with the state budget. Is the state going to come back and take more money from us because 172 passed?”

Supporters of Proposition 172 had warned that if the measure failed, the county would lose nearly $28 million in sales tax revenue next year--possibly forcing sharp cuts in fire protection, crime fighting and other government services.

They said their campaign received an unexpected boost from the county wildfires that scorched more than 60,000 acres over the past week, causing an estimated $12 million in property damage.

The county’s traditionally conservative voters, who overwhelmingly opposed a half-cent sales tax increase two years ago for transportation projects, responded by approving Proposition 172 by a margin of 58.1% to 41.9%, slightly higher than the statewide margin.

“I was surprised that it passed,” Ventura County Supervisor Maggie Kildee said. “Ventura County is usually reluctant to approve any kind of tax. I don’t know whether the fires did this, or if people understood this time that we clearly needed the money.”

Wittenberg said he was also “pleasantly surprised” by voter support. “There’s no question the fires had safety on people’s minds. No one’s happy about fires, but I think it really brought out people’s awareness” about the potential for cutbacks in services.

Dist. Atty. Michael D. Bradbury said he was confident all along that voters would support the sales tax measure.

“I wasn’t overly concerned,” Bradbury said. “I anticipated that it would pass pretty well here because this county is so supportive of law enforcement.”

*

Bradbury said he and Sheriff Larry Carpenter plan to meet soon with Wittenberg to discuss future funding for their departments.

“We’ve had layoffs the last three years,” said Bradbury, whose office received a 6% funding cut earlier this year. “We need to start building back our staff.”

Local taxpayer groups opposed to the sales tax initiative said it was difficult to campaign against Proposition 172 because it was successfully promoted as a public safety issue rather than a tax issue.

“We were going against a strong head wind,” said Jere Robings, president of the Ventura County Alliance of Taxpayers. “It was portrayed to the public as a law-and-order issue, which is like motherhood and apple pie.”

Robings said he believes the initiative was more acceptable to voters because it was the continuation of an existing tax, rather than a new one.

“We didn’t support it because we felt the politicians had promised that this would be a temporary tax, and the legislators had a moral obligation to live up to that,” he said.

Ventura County voters also reacted strongly to two major education initiatives.

Like their counterparts statewide, voters rejected by a 2-1 margin the most controversial ballot measure, Proposition 174, which proposed to give a $2,600 voucher to parents who opted to send a child to private school.

Public education officials said they were pleased with the overwhelming defeat of the measure, but they acknowledged the current of discontent with public schools. They vowed to improve education programs to win the support of all voters.

“I think the message to us is that we’ve got to go out and change our way of doing business,” said Ventura schools Supt. Joseph Spirito. “We’ve got to make some changes. We’ve got to build confidence back in our schools.”

*

Officials expressed disappointment with the rejection of an initiative that they said would have made it easier for local voters to raise property taxes to repay local school construction bonds.

Proposition 170, defeated locally by a 3-1 margin, would have allowed a simple majority of voters--rather than the two-thirds majority now required--to approve such a property tax increase.

The defeat was not a surprise to officials of Pleasant Valley Elementary School District, which in 1991 failed twice to get a school construction bond measure passed, even though each received a majority vote. The district has had to borrow against future developer fees to build a much-needed school to ease classroom crowding.

“We had hope that (Proposition) 170 would be passed,” Associate Supt. Howard Hamilton said. “But I think the voters were ready to react against anything that would cost more money.”

Assemblyman Jack O’Connell (D-Carpinteria), who proposed the measure as part of a six-year campaign, said the initiative suffered because the educational community had put all of its resources into the campaign against Proposition 174.

But O’Connell said he hasn’t given up his efforts to help schools acquire more construction funding. “It’s a setback,” O’Connell said. “It just means we have to work harder.”

Only in Santa Paula did voters manage to approve an increase in property taxes, to help finance the city’s Blanchard Library. Property owners will be assessed $25 a year per parcel under Measure W, which passed with 69.3% of the vote.

It was only the third time in Ventura County that a jurisdiction rallied sufficient voter backing to overcome the 66.7% vote requirement set down by Proposition 13 more than 15 years ago.

Only Oxnard elementary and Simi Valley schools have managed to meet that steep challenge, while many other attempts have fallen short, said Bruce Bradley, county elections chief.

“The two-thirds requirement has really stymied them,” Bradley said. “If 170 passed, you would see a bunch of them. Every one of them get the 50% plus, but very rarely do they get two-thirds.”

FINAL ELECTION RETURNS

State Propositions

How California Voted

Returns in the “How California Voted” columns represent vote totals from the entire state.

100% Precincts Reporting: votes (%)

168--Low Rent Housing Projects. Legislative Constitutional Amendment. Yes: 1,822,243 (40%) No: 2,705,366 (60%)

169--Budget Implementation. Legislative Constitutional Amendment. Yes: 1,692,725 (39%) No: 2,682,170 (61%)

170--Property Taxes. Schools. Majority Vote. Development-Fee Limits. Legislative Constitutional Amendment. Yes: 1,417,446 (31%) No: 3,190,810 (69%)

171--Property Taxation. Transfer of Base Year Value. Legislative Constitutional Amendment. Yes: 2,280,338 (52%) No: 2,148,959 (49%)

172--Local Public Safety Protection and Improvement Act of 1993. Legislative Constitutional Amendment. Yes: 2,699,521 (58%) No: 1,977,097 (42%)

173--California Housing and Jobs Investment Bond Act. Legislative Bond Act. Yes: 1,905,958 (42%) No: 2,606,711 (58%)

174--Education. Vouchers. Initiative Constitutional Amendment. Yes: 1,451,721 (30%) No: 3,335,385 (70%)

How Ventura County Voted

Returns in the “How Ventura County Voted” columns represent vote totals from Ventura County only.

100% Precincts Reporting: Votes (%)

168--Low Rent Housing Projects. Legislative Constitutional Amendment. Yes: 41,588 (37) No: 71,903 (63)

169--Budget Implementation. Legislative Constitutional Amendment. Yes: 39,385 (36) No: 70,522 (64)

170--Property Taxes. Schools. Majority Vote. Development-Fee Limits. Legislative Constitutional Amendment. Yes: 32,341 (28) No: 83,360 (72)

171--Property Taxation. Transfer of Base Year Value. Legislative Constitutional Amendment. Yes: 60,563 (54) No: 51,236 (46)

172--Local Public Safety Protection and Improvement Act of 1993. Legislative Constitutional Amendment. Yes: 68,102 (58) No: 49,055 (42)

173--California Housing and Jobs Investment Bond Act. Legislative Bond Act. Yes: 44,856 (40) No: 67,950 (60)

174--Education. Vouchers. Initiative Constitutional Amendment. Yes: 39,642 (33) No: 79,419 (67)