Irvine : Sacramento Delegation Supports a Toll Road

Seven members of Orange County’s Sacramento delegation met in the same room for the first time this week and said they would support construction of a toll road and believe that county voters should have another chance to approve or reject a local sales tax for transportation projects.

The unusual gathering at the Irvine Hilton Hotel Thursday was sponsored by the Lincoln Club of Orange County, an influential Republican volunteer organization. The invitation-only audience of about 300 included some of the county’s top civic and business leaders.

Under pointed questioning by panelists, the legislators admitted that they had never met to discuss a unified legislative course to help solve county traffic problems.

And when asked what clout they might have with others on traffic issues, the legislators said that although they are respected individually, transportation is not the Legislature’s nor the governor’s top concern.

Said Assemblyman Gil Ferguson (R-Newport Beach): “During the eight years of the Brown (Edmund G. Brown Jr.) Administration, California went from being No. 1 in transportation to No. 49. . . . Under the current governor (Deukmejian), we went from (being No.) 49 to 50.”

Other participants at the meeting were state Sens. Marian Bergeson (R-Newport Beach), John Seymour (R-Anaheim), Edward R. Royce (R-Anaheim) and Assembly members Doris Allen (R-Cypress), Nolan Frizzelle (R-Huntington Beach) and Richard Longshore (R-Santa Ana).

The delegation was divided on the use of bonds to finance highway construction and gasoline tax increases and whether transportation spending should be exempt from the so-called Gann limit.