OC Blog

Renew Measure M Campaign Wins Award

This came over the transom a little while ago from Schubert Flint Public Affairs:

SCHUBERT FLINT PUBLIC AFFAIRS WINS AWARDS

In partnership with the Orange County Transportation Authority, Schubert Flint Public Affairs took home top honors from the Orange County Public Relations Society of America

ANAHEIM, CA – In conjunction with the Orange County Transportation’s (OCTA) External Affairs Team, Schubert Flint Public Affairs (SFPA) won two Protos and three Awards of Excellence from the Orange County chapter of the Public Relations Society of America for the “Promises Made, Promises Kept: Communicating Measure M” campaign.

Winning Measure M: An Interview With Jeff Flint

Public affairs consultant Jeff Flint had a big day on Election Day: his firm, Schubert Flint Public Affairs, won virtually every race they were involved in. The toughest race was Measure M, because convincing two-thirds of the voters in conservative, anti-tax Orange County to renew a 20-year old half-cent sale tax for another 30 years is a tall mountain to climb. Even though I supported renewing Measure M, until the last few weeks of the campaign I was skeptical it would clear the two-thirds. The Yes on M team needed to hit 66.7%, and ultimately garnered 69.5%.

Frankly, I think the only reason it won is the campaign was in the hands of a politically conservative consulting team that understands Orange County. As OCTA's Monte Ward told me on election night when I asked him how they won: "Because we ran a Republican campaign."

I interviewed my old friend Jeff about the political mechanics of the Measure M renewal victory.

Matthew Cunningham: When did the Renew Measure M Committee form, and what was the configuration of the campaign consulting team?

Jeff Flint: The committee was formed in May, 2006.  The initial campaign team consisted of Townsend, Raimundo, Besler and Usher for strategy and direct mail, Schubert Flint for strategy, day-to-day management and coalitions, Smith Watts for strategy and transportation planning, Jim Moore for polling and Stacy Davis for fundraising.

At SFPA's recommendation, we added John Lewis and Matt Holder over the summer to help with mail targetting strategy and Meg Waters to help with earned media.

TRBU left the campaign in late August, and SFPA took over responsibility for direct mail and overall strategy.  Smith Watts and Moore left with TRBU. We added Meridian Pacific to help with mail production, and used both Vince Monaco and Jim Bieber to produce mail. We added Gary Lawrence for polling.

No On Measure M

I've been pondering M, and I think Greenhut, Probolsky and the Register are right -- the OCTA can do better.  There's simply too much funding (25%, or about $3 billion thru 2041) allocated to mass transit in the current iteration of M.  After the 5% of it that's to placate the treehuggers for dealing with runoff and such (is this really the OCTA's job?), that leaves 70% of M revenue to go for what we DESPERATELY need most: more pavement.  The argument's indisputable that 25% of M for mass transit apparently supports less than 1% of the commuting poplution -- that's too disproportionate and simply not fair.

I recall hearing that M2 is only going to build about 36 actual lane miles, compared to a significant amount more that M1 accomplished.  No matter what the number, it's too little -- especially when some amount of that will be for car pool lanes (see what $300 million of M buys here).  The car poolers (read soccer moms) are marking the same ballot that I do, and it's unfair that we with the indeterminate schedules can't use all pavement we paid for, it's discriminatory and especially annoying that the Libs are letting in the Priuses (Prii?) to those lanes in their latest attempt at socially engineering concrete and asphalt and unbalancing the balance of trade even further.

Bloomberg on Measure M

With quotes from OC Blogger Leyes and Anaheim's Mayor Pringle -- lead,

California Conservatives Face Sticky Choice: Tax or Traffic

By Peter J. Brennan

Nov. 3 (Bloomberg) -- Voters in California's Orange County, a bastion of anti-tax conservatives, have a choice in next week's election: extend the life of a local tax, or vote ``no'' and live with the traffic jams that the tax revenue was meant to ease.

Ballots on Nov. 7 will include a county proposal called Measure M that would continue a half-cent local sales tax, earmarked for road improvement, for 30 years.

``Conservatives are conflicted,'' said Mark Leyes, a Garden Grove city council member who is one of the few elected officials to openly oppose the measure. ``Some of my friends are sitting on their hands and looking the other way. They might hold their noses and vote for it.''

Read the entire article here.

Dealing Dough

Per Larry Gilbert at Orange Juice, check out the major contributors to Yes on Measure M: Measure M supporters..follow the money.  Cowabunga!  In part,

Let me list the top players plus two others:
Auto Club $203,773.00
OC Businss Council $163,800.00
Agua Caliente Band 100,000.00
RMV Entitlement Co 99,800.00
The Irvine Co 99,800.00
Heritage Fields LLC 99,000.00
Lennar Platinum Triangle 99,000.00
Sares-Regis Group 50,000.00
Centex Homes 49,900.00
CH2M Hill Inc 49,900.00
John Laing Homes 49,900.00
Michael Hayde 49,900.00
Walt Disney 49,900.00
William Lyon 49,900.00
Roger Grable 100.00
Martin Thompson 100.00

Club for Growth Says No on M

Larry Gilbert posted this earlier on the Orange Juice: CA Club For Growth Newsletter Vote NO on Measure M.  We're on C4G's mailing list as well and will post anything further that comes in.

Why This Conservative Is Supporting Measure M

[Editor's note: this is the complete version of my op-ed from yesterday's OC Register, which was edited due to space considerations]:

Why This Conservative Is Supporting Measure M

By Matthew Cunningham

I voted against Measure M in 1990. I don’t recall much about the campaign other than Measure M was a tax increase, and as a philosophical conservative I am against tax increases. Thus, I voted no.

I have no qualms admitting to being wrong on that one. Orange County’s current transportation infrastructure is a vast improvement over what it was in 1990. Many stretches of freeways and roads are unrecognizable – in a good way – compared to just a few years ago. Measure M projects were completed on time and under budget, a minor miracle in the world of government.

Consequently, I’m convinced of the necessity of Orange County having its own, independent revenue stream to fund transportation and transit infrastructure. Relying on the generosity of Sacramento and Washington is too uncertain and subject to the shifting winds of political fortune, while a local, long-term, independent revenue stream allows Orange County to control its transportation destiny.

Measure M In the Irvine Council Races

From this week's OC Insider by Rick Reiff in the OCBJ:

The bipartisan campaign to renew Measure M, the half-cent sales tax for transportation improvements, has hit a partisan pothole. Irvine Councilwoman Christina Shea and Irvine mayoral candidate John Duong, both Republicans, are objecting to Measure M ads in the Larry Agran-inspired Hometown Voter Guide that tout their Democrat rivals Sukhee Kang, Beth Krom and Mary Ann Gaido. The guide indicates that Measure M “paid for and authorized” the spots, but M campaign organizers told the Insider that an Agran-affiliated group, not they, footed the bill. M campaigners did say that they welcome support from politicians of all stripes. Duong acknowledged it might have been clever of the Agran camp to align with a popular measure that he and Shea also support. But he said the appearance of partisanship could hurt M, which needs a two-thirds vote to pass ...

Measure M Mailbox:

I received this pro-Measure M mailer yesterday (and given that the Renew Measure M side has $1.6 million and the No on Measure M side hasn't even enough to throw a decent kegger, Yes on M is probably the only kind of mail I'll get ):  Click here to download full size images (351k PDF file).

 

This is part of the city-specific mailing I had anticipated in a previous post. Here's the one that went to Newport Beach:

Measure M Mailbox: City-Specific Pro-M Mailers Landing Around OC

The Renew Measure M campaign fired the opening salvo of it's mail campaign last week, as city-specific mailers began landing in South County mail boxes. The mail is being put together by Schubert Flint Public Affairs with the help of Lewis Consulting Group -- which is why it is a good mail piece.

I received my version of the first mailer today, tailored to my beloved home town of Orange.

Particularly effective are these photos comparing the  I-5 at Chapman Avenue in Orange before and after Measure M.

A picture is worth a thousand words, and the effect of these pictures is striking. I presume the same types of before-and-after shots were used in the various city-tailored mailers. I think that is a smart targeting strategy: informing voters how Measure M has benefited their town -- rather than a more remote county-wide basis -- and implicitly how a renewed Measure will continue to benefit their community.