MEASURE A FAILS

Posted June 6, 2007

By DAWN WITHERS
The Salinas Californian

Monterey County voters have rejected Measure A, a slow-growth land-use initiative, while upholding the general plan approved by the Board of Supervisors, a county attorney said Tuesday night.

But a lawyer for the Measure A campaign disputed the contention that the supervisors' plan has won voter approval.

What is undisputed is Measure A's failure. With 100 percent of precincts reporting and absentee ballots received through Friday counted, 55 percent of voters had cast votes against the initiative.

"Measure A has been defeated; it's over," said Todd Niles, a volunteer poll-watcher for the "No on Measure A" campaign, which was largely financed by Salinas Valley agricultural leaders and businesses.

"I think because the vast majority of people voted by absentee ballot, whatever comes today from the polling data is pretty much irrelevant. This election was decided by absentee ballot."

The leading spokesman for Measure A, Chris Fitz, said a complex, layered ballot contributed to the outcome.

"I'm disappointed; I thought that the (Measure) A vote would be closer," said Fitz, executive director of LandWatch Monterey County, a primary architect of Measure A. "The whole scenario is very unusual: This should have been on the ballot last June. This ballot was very convoluted and challenging."

Fifty-two percent of voters cast ballots in favor of the supervisors' plan by voting no on Measure B.

Measure B asked voters whether they wanted to repeal the plan, also known as General Plan Update 4. A "no" vote meant they wanted to keep GPU4.

Measure C, a referendum circulated by Measure A proponents, asked voters if they wanted to enact GPU4, and 56 percent of voters said "no." But Lee Blankenship, Monterey County assistant counsel, said "no" votes on Measure B hold more weight because they are votes in the affirmative - opposing the plan's repeal.

Measure B caused some confusion, because voting "no" means a voter wants to keep GPU4 and voting "yes" means they don't.

Blankenship said it prevailed because it got a majority percent of "no" votes, or 24,944.

Those numbers mean GPU4 is the plan voters selected, Blankenship said.

But Fred Woocher, the attorney for the "Yes on Measure A" campaign, said that the county's interpretation is wrong and that all the measures failed.

"They all lost. There's no way any of them wins. (The supervisors) got stuck with their old plan, got what they wanted and frustrated voters. (The supervisors) outsmarted themselves," Woocher said.

Measure C, which asked voters whether they wanted to approve GPU4, received 20,934 votes in its favor or 44 percent, which he said wasn't enough to trump the "no" votes in favor of Measure B.

Ballot complexity at issue

Supporters of Measure A have long accused the Board of Supervisors of intentionally making the ballot confusing and tilting it in their favor with two measures that asked the same question in different ways, thereby confusing voters who are more likely to vote "no" on everything. Supervisors declined to remove Measure B from the ballot after Measure C, the referendum, qualified through the collection of 15,000 voter signatures in 30 days.

"The supervisors put together a very confusing ballot, and that leads to a tendency for voters to just vote 'no'," said Phyllis Meurer, campaign volunteer and past-president League of Women Voters of the Salinas Valley. "If Measure A had gone on the ballot after the petition and been presented clearly, it would have passed."

Given the sharply conflicting interpretations of the ballot results, members of both campaigns say exactly what general plan Monterey County ends up with will likely be decided in court.

But for Tuesday night, it was time to celebrate for the No on A camp. Gathered at the National Steinbeck Center in Salinas, hundreds of initiative opponents drank wine and ate chocolate as election results were projected on two enormous screens.

Many of the attendees were pleased with Measure A's defeat but were confused with how measures B and C results would play out.

By defeating Measure A, its opponents said, they accomplished what they set out to do by warning enough voters about the dangers of enacting Measure A.
Opponents contended agriculture, Monterey County's largest business, and needed housing growth would both be hamstrung by land-use restrictions if Measure A passed."Ballot-box planning is dangerous. Initiatives used in this format are dangerous," said Lorri Koster, co-chairwoman of grower-shipper Mann Packing Co.

Two sides turn to lawyers

What happens next will depend largely on the legal strategies of the campaigns - if any decide to challenge GPU4 in court, Blankenship said.

The election may prove to be the culmination of more than seven years and $7 million spent to draft four versions of the general plan by Monterey County supervisors.

In January, the supervisors agreed to put GPU4 to a vote, along with the initiative, as a way of ending the dispute over what kind of general plan will govern growth in Monterey County during the next two decades.

Both campaigns collectively spent more than $1 million fighting each other to reach voters with their messages. Each campaign accused the other of being misleading and fallacious.

Both campaigns were anticipating low voter turnout and focused on getting their base to the polls.

The campaigns centered around "yes" or "no" on Measure A because it was the most controversial and high-stakes ballot measure, although voters were asked to cast ballots on all three questions.

The bitterness between the faction backing the supervisors' plan and that backing the initiative goes back more than three years, when supervisors failed to approve a compromise plan, GPU3, crafted by slow-growth groups and business interests.

Members of both campaigns have said after GPU3 failed, talks between slow-growth and business interests stopped, leading LandWatch to start working on its general plan initiative and others to work with supervisors through their approval of GPU4.

Salinas Californian staff writer ROBERT SALONGA contributed to this report.
Contact Dawn Withers at withers@thecalifornian.com.