Fires May Give Boost to Making Half-Cent Sales Tax Permanent : Elections: Backers of Proposition 172 say fire safety will be at risk if the measure fails. School bond change is among other items on the ballot.

SACRAMENTO —  The devastating fires that swept through Southern California last week may prove to be the political savior of a controversial proposal to make permanent a temporary, half-cent portion of the sales tax that is scheduled to expire at the end of the year.

Advocates of Proposition 172 are citing the fires in interviews and advertising to underscore their argument that public safety services, including firefighting, will be at risk if the sales tax measure is defeated.

The fires came just as an underfunded campaign against the ballot proposition began to air its first radio commercials opposing Proposition 172, and as voters focused on the proposals they will decide in Tuesday’s special election.

In addition to the sales tax measure and the hotly debated private school voucher issue, voters on Tuesday will pass judgment on a proposal to make it easier for local school districts to sell bonds to finance construction of classrooms.

Other measures would change the way the state adopts its annual package of budget legislation, modify a property tax exemption for disaster victims, ease construction of low-income housing and create a fund to help first-time home buyers qualify for mortgages.

Proposition 172 would embed in the state Constitution a half-cent sales tax that was enacted by lawmakers and Gov. Pete Wilson in 1991 as an emergency measure to help balance the state budget. The tax was scheduled to expire June 30 but was extended through the end of this year. Now voters can decide to let the tax expire or make it permanent.

If Proposition 172 passes, local governments will get about $1.5 billion annually. If it fails, supporters of the tax have been saying, the result will be the devastation of local police and fire department budgets. But until recently, it appears, few voters were listening.

As recently as mid-October, polls showed that three out of four registered voters did not know enough about Proposition 172 to take a position. After hearing a description of the measure taken from the official ballot pamphlet, 44% in a Times Poll said they would vote in favor and 34% were opposed. Another 22% still were undecided.

The $2-million campaign on behalf of the measure, funded by big businesses and public employee labor unions, has been airing radio and television commercials stressing the argument that public safety will be at risk if the half-cent sales tax is allowed to lapse.

Until late last week, however, most of the focus was on crime. That changed with the fires.

“We have to have public safety agencies prepared for this sort of thing and able to deal with it,” Stu Mollrich, an Orange County political consultant who is managing the campaign in favor of the sales tax, said as he prepared a television commercial to capitalize on the fires.

It is true that police and fire services would almost certainly suffer budget cuts if the sales tax is turned down, but services other than public safety will benefit if the tax stays on the books. The money from the sales tax may go only to public safety. But money now being spent on law enforcement and fire protection could be diverted to other programs.

Opponents are hoping to drive that point home with radio commercials that play on the public’s distrust of what politicians are doing with their money. Despite facing the prospect of being outspent 10 to 1, opponents are taking heart that the measure so far is not a favorite with a majority of voters in opinion polls.

Ballot measures often lose a few points off their margin on Election Day as skeptical voters side against them.

“This thing hasn’t hit 50% yet,” said Wayne Johnson, a consultant for the opposition, which relies mainly on small contributions. “That’s an extreme danger sign.”

The other major tax-related measure on the ballot--Proposition 170--is doing the worst in the polls. The Times Poll taken Oct. 16-19 found that two-thirds of voters hadn’t heard of the measure. Among those who had, it was trailing by a 2-1 margin.

The ballot measure would amend the state Constitution to allow school districts to sell bonds for classroom construction with the approval of a simple majority of voters. It currently takes a two-thirds majority to approve school bonds, which generally lead to higher property taxes.

“It’s a struggle,” said Mark Timmerman, who has been managing the campaign for the measure. “We’re hoping what we’ve been hoping since Day 1--that turnout of the anti-voucher, pro-school vote will help us overcome the odds.”

But Joel Fox, president of the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Foundation, which has led the opposition to Proposition 170, said he expects the polls to hold up on Tuesday.

“It’s a lot easier to get a no vote than a yes vote,” Fox said. “In politics, it is very difficult to disrupt the status quo.”

Also on Tuesday’s ballot:

* Proposition 168, which would make it easier for local government to build subsidized housing for the poor without putting the issue to the voters.

The Constitution now prohibits state or local governments from developing low-rent housing projects unless they are approved by voters.

This measure would instead require local governments to simply notify the public that low-income housing is in the offing. An election would be required only if a certain number of voters signed petitions demanding it.

* Proposition 169, which would allow lawmakers to approve a single bill as a companion to each year’s budget. Currently, under the “single-subject” clause in the state Constitution, lawmakers must vote separately on tax increases, program cuts and other changes in law needed to implement the budget.

* Proposition 171, to allow disaster victims to purchase a new home or business property in another county without having to pay an increase in property taxes.

Under Proposition 13, passed by voters in 1978, property is reassessed every time it changes hands, which generally forces new owners to pay higher property taxes than the seller was paying.

The law now allows owners of property destroyed in a disaster to buy a replacement property of the same or lesser value in the same county and not pay higher taxes.

Without this provision, people who had bought a house for $100,000 and had seen it appreciate to $200,000 before being destroyed could have their taxes double if they bought a similarly valued house to replace the one they lost.

Proposition 171 would extend the disaster exemption to allow victims to move across county lines and still maintain lower tax payments.

* Proposition 173, which would allow the state to sell $185 million in bonds for a program to help first-time home buyers qualify for loans.

The bond funds would allow mortgage insurance to be provided for 5,000 to 10,000 first-time home buyers every year. The insurance would allow them to obtain mortgages with a down payment as low as 3%.