NORTH COUNTY -- Just three years after a regional agency urged North County residents to support a $14 billion sales tax measure, some community leaders are beginning to think the agency may renege on promises it made to the area -- again.

A rebuilt Highway 76 was promised when the San Diego Association of Governments hit up voters in 1987 for approval to charge county residents a half-percent sales tax for transportation. But just one-third of the project was completed.

When the agency hit up voters a second time in November 2004, it promised several more big-ticket items for North County -- and to go back and finish widening the narrow two-lane section of Highway 76 along the San Luis Rey River.

Then, just a few months ago, the agency disclosed that soaring construction costs had jeopardized one of those new "wow" projects, as Executive Director Gary Gallegos referred to them. The plan to add two car-pool lanes to Highway 78 through Oceanside, Vista, San Marcos and Escondido needs billions in new revenue to stay on track, the agency announced.

"Promises are always much more extreme and available when they want something than when the money starts flowing," said County Supervisor Pam Slater-Price, who represents coastal North County, in a telephone interview Friday. "That's always the case. It's never different. And it's not different this time."

Slater-Price, who opposed the tax renewal on the grounds it was tilted too much toward public transit and too little toward freeways, said the Highway 78 development is alarming, given that the campaign ended a short time ago.

"This is only Year 3 (since the renewal vote)," she said. "What's going to happen in Year 28 or Year 30?"

When news of the shortfall surfaced last spring, the association board discussed options for filling its budget gap, although it has yet to propose a strategy for doing so.

"They were shamed, in my view, into saying, 'OK, we'll try to find the money,' " Slater-Price said. "But I certainly never thought that we would have this kind of backing away from the intent (of the 2004 measure) so quickly."

A crucial artery

Association officials say they are not backing away from anything.

Poway Mayor Mickey Cafagna, former association chairman, said he is committed to deliver all of the 2004 promises, including the northern Highway 76 project that has been put off for so many years. State transportation officials say the road is now expected to open in 2013.

Cafagna also said he is committed to building car-pool lanes on six-lane Highway 78, North County's primary east-west artery, and new ramps connecting the freeway with Interstates 5 and 15.

"The 78 has to get done. There is just no doubt about it," Cafagna said. "We have to find the money and make that work."

Oceanside Councilman Jack Feller, who served on the board in 2004, echoed that point, saying the east-west freeway is crucial to the continued prosperity of the county's economy.

"We're going to add a million people to this county (over the next 25 years), and there are going to be an awful lot of them in North County," Feller said. Consequently, he said, taking Highway 78 off the list "is not acceptable."

And Cafagna, predicting the agency will be successful in its search for dollars, said the project won't be taken off the agenda.

One must remember, Cafagna said, that the money from the sales tax extension won't begin flowing until April.

When the association placed the extension measure on the 2004 ballot, the regional agency went out of its way to win support from conservationists, taxpayer watchdogs and other key interest groups.

It also went out of its way to garner support from North County's city councils and chambers of commerce.

No highway left behind

With the bar for passing tax measures having been raised by a constitutional amendment in the 1990s from a simple majority to a two-thirds vote, the agency could not afford to lose in North County. If it was going to reach that higher threshold, the agency was going to have to win in North County, and win big.

And to do that, the agency was going to have to overcome an obstacle.

At the time, many North County residents and elected officials were still bitter about Highway 76 being left behind. They were told when they voted to create the tax in 1987, that the highway was going to be improved all the way from Interstate 5 in Oceanside to Interstate 15 east of Bonsall. And they were upset that the money ran out at Melrose Drive.

The 10-mile section between Melrose and I-15 remains a dangerous, severely congested two-lane road.

Knowing how North County felt about the broken promise, and that the agency could not win passage for the 40-year tax extension without the area's votes, the association made another promise. It vowed not only to finish the road this time, but to move it to the front of the line.

The agency's North County board members, including Cafagna, promised voters in a column published in the North County Times in October 2004 that they would not only finish Highway 76, but widen several other highways. Board members promised to spend the sales tax money on a 14-lane I-5 along the coast, a 12-lane I-15 through Rancho Bernardo and Escondido, and an eight-lane Highway 78.

So far, it looks like all of those projects will be delivered, said County Supervisor Bill Horn, a frequent critic of the earlier failure to complete Highway 76.

"As far as I'm concerned, they are delivering on the promises to North County," Horn said.

Waiting for the ribbon cutting

It all sounds so great, mused Bob Leonard, chief executive officer of the Fallbrook Chamber of Commerce and long-time advocate for Highway 76 improvements.

But the bottom line, Leonard said, is there is still no construction taking place along the San Luis Rey River, which runs along Highway 76.

"After all these years, I need to see work being done," he said. "A promise is a promise, and the fulfillment of a promise is a road. Excuse me, but I'm going to withhold my congratulations to everybody who has been working so hard on this until we have the ribbon cutting to open the road."

Bonsall residents also are tired of waiting.

"The progress has been slow in coming," said Gerald Walson, president of Bonsall Area for a Rural Community and editor of a community newsletter. "Basically nothing has happened."

As frustrating as the wait has been, the project is nearing a key milestone, said Mark Phelan, Highway 76 project manager for the California Department of Transportation in San Diego.

Phelan said in early October his agency will distribute to the public a draft environmental impact report exploring options for road widening and gauging the potential impact for each option.

And despite the recent focus on paperwork, he said, the project is still, for the most part, on track.

Phelan said Caltrans expects to complete the middle section between Melrose Drive and South Mission Road by 2011, and to finish the section between Bonsall and I-15 by 2013. He said the schedule has slipped four or five months over the last couple years, but 2013 is a solid completion date that motorists can count on.

"We're trying not to make a promise we can't keep," Phelan said.

Contact staff writer Dave Downey at (760) 745-6611, Ext. 2623, or ddowney@nctimes.comm.