David Hendryx has a beige Mercedes-Benz and a home in hip Laguna Beach, but no way was he willing to shell out an extra half-cent in sales tax so Orange County could pay its debts.
Hendryx, like others who overwhelmingly rejected the sales tax increase by a 3-2 margin Tuesday, sent this message to the county Board of Supervisors: "Until they stop blaming others and take responsibility for this mess, I'm not going to bail them out."Whatever the explanation, Orange County's conservative electorate will probably join the likes of Lenin, Castro and Mao, all of whom walked away from debt obligations.
That didn't bother David Sanges, 34, a sales manager shopping at South Coast Plaza.
"They're all kinds of stereotypes for us in Orange County. I can live with being called a deadbeat," Sanges said. "A lot people already think we're immoral."
In a region filled with rich communities like Newport Beach, sprawling malls with tony shops such as Tiffany & Co., and one of the nation's highest annual median incomes of $46,000, taxpayers living outside the Orange County curtain may wonder what's so bur-den-some about a half-cent increase.
After all, a temporary sales tax of 8.25 percent from 7.75 percent would have put Orange County on par with Los Angeles County and raised $130 million annually over the next decade. The Measure R sales tax increase was the linchpin designed to pull the county out of bankruptcy and to stave off default on nearly $1 billion in bonds that come due this summer.
"It's not a matter of af-ford-ability, but a matter of principle," Hendryx said Wednesday as he waited for service at Fletcher Jones Motor Cars, a Newport Beach Mercedes-Benz dealer that features a two-hole putting green near the dealership entrance and a cappuccino bar in the customer lounge.
But other Californians may end up paying for Orange County's principal in the form of higher borrowing costs if Wall Street investors see state and local bonds as a risky investment.
Actor Gordon Jump of TV's "WKRP in Cincinnati," who was waiting for his Mercedes to be serviced, regretted any possible fallout from the sales-tax defeat but said the politicians had to be taught a lesson.
"The ruling group of people are asking the citizenry to pay for their stupidity," Jump said. "I know this is supposed to be a temporary tax, but I don't know of any temporary tax that's ever been imposed and later (removed)."
Despite the overwhelming defeat of the tax increase, some residents supported the measure.
Seated inside a softly lit, wood-paneled room at Tiffany & Co. in Costa Mesa, store manager Jo Ellen Qualls said she voted in favor of the tax.
"It's either going to be paid in the form of higher taxes or lesser services. Either way, we're still going to pay."