Cost per vote was a Greenlight special

Mathis Winkler

NEWPORT BEACH -- For $3.50, you’d be lucky to get a fast food “value

meal.”

For $37.94, you can get 10 of them and throw a kids’ birthday party.

Or buy the kid two CDs as a present instead.

Those two amounts represent the price tags for “yes” votes for each of

the two growth-control measures on last Tuesday’s election ballot.

Having spent just $65,163, Greenlight supporters got the much better

deal per vote, compared to backers of Measure T, who spent $378,324.

The Greenlight initiative, which will put before a citywide vote any

development that allows an increase of more than 100 peak-hour car trips

or dwelling units or 40,000 square feet over the general plan allowance,

passed with 63.4% of the vote.

Defeated Measure T proponents, who had suggested adding parts of the

city’s traffic phasing ordinance to the City Charter, used a bit of dark

humor to comment on the higher price they had to pay per vote.

“So we were only off our goal by six cents,” said a joking Clarence

Turner, co-chairman of the campaign. Only 35.1% of residents favored

Measure T.

Turner said Greenlight supporters had done a “very good job” in

organizing grass-roots support.

“I know what it takes to do a grass-roots campaign,” he said. “My hat

goes off to those people.”

But switching gears, he added that Greenlight had benefited from many

volunteers donating their time to the campaign.

“If you would show that in the calculation [of the cost of ‘yes’

votes], I bet you that cost would equal ours,” Turner said. “Remember,

Greenlighters for the most part are people that are retired. People on

our side -- all of us are working.”

With a high percentage of the city’s residents over the age of 65,

Turner said his opponents were at a clear advantage.

“Those people tend to think in terms of, ‘We don’t want any more

[development]. We’re only concerned about ourselves,’ ” Turner said.

He added that the booming economy also had people less worried about

jobs and maintaining growth.

“Would we have won had this occurred in 1994? I think we probably

would have,” he said.

Greenlight supporters jumped on Turner’s comment that their campaign

had benefited from volunteer work.

“That’s exactly the point,” said Allan Beek, who helped write the

measure. “Greenlight came out of the people. It was a spontaneous

grass-roots uprising and you can’t buy that with money.”

o7 FYIf7

* Measure T

Money spent: $378,324

“Yes” votes: 9,972

Price per vote: $37.94

* Measure S

Money spent: $65,163

“Yes” votes: 18,626

Price per vote: $3.50