Orange County Slow-Growth Bid Gains

More than 95,000 signatures were filed Tuesday in an effort to qualify a far-reaching slow-growth measure for the June ballot in Orange County.

Leaders of Citizens for Sensible Growth and Traffic Control filled a coffin with petitions bearing the signatures--far more than the approximately 66,000 needed--and drove it to the office of the county registrar of voters in a black hearse.

“We want to signify the end of politics as we know it--we hope it represents the demise of the hold that the developers have had on supervisors,” said Tom Rogers, co-founder of Orange County Tomorrow, the grass-roots organization that drafted the initiative.

Registrar Don Tanney said he hopes to determine within 17 working days how many of the signatures submitted to him are those of registered voters residing in the county.

In the supervisors’ offices Tuesday, meanwhile, a behind-the-scenes battle was being waged over whether to delay a scheduled vote today on agreements with six developers that would circumvent the proposed ballot measure. The agreements would exempt construction of more than 38,000 new homes from future changes in the county’s land-use policies.

The proposed initiative would impose tough traffic-flow standards and minimum response times for public-safety agencies. It also would require the developers to set aside more land for parks.