Supervisors Postpone Sales Tax Measure for Roads

A proposal for a November election quarter-cent sales tax measure for road repairs and maintenance hit a roadblock Tuesday when the Sonoma County Board of Supervisors voted instead to put it on a special election ballot for March 3, 2015.

Supervisor Mark McGuire and board chairman David Rabbitt, who served on a road maintenance ad-hoc committee, proposed postponing the sales tax measure until November 2015. The deadline to get the measure on the November 2014 ballot is Friday.

A week ago, the board had voted unanimously to place the general sales tax measure and an advisory measure earmarking the money for roads on this November’s ballot. However, McGuire said Tuesday that November was too soon to get funding to advocate for the sales tax and get support from voters and stakeholders.

“Doing it right is more important than doing it now,” he said.

“There’s something to be said about taking measured steps, getting broad support and doing it right,” Rabbitt said.

Supervisor Efren Carrillo last week said he was concerned about Sonoma County voters being swamped with seven other sales tax and bond measures being proposed by schools and cities on the November ballot.

The Petaluma City Council is opposed to the county’s measure because there is a tax measure on the November ballot for Petaluma road repairs.

Carrillo said postponing the road tax is appropriate because the long-term road maintenance plan is not final and there are only 10 or 11 weeks left to do so. “Timing is not on our side,” Carrillo said.

Supervisors Shirlee Zane and Susan Gorin objected to the delay. “I don’t know how we can say it’s not time. We’ll have a hard time saying, ‘Sorry, we’re not there yet,’” Gorin said.

“We can’t afford to wait. You haven’t made your case to fully put the brakes on. I don’t want to leave $20 million on the table,” Zane said.

The quarter-cent sales tax is expected to generate $20 million per year if approved. Sonoma County would get $8.7 million and the town of Windsor and the county’s eight cities would get a share of the rest depending on their population and the percentage they have of the county’s 1,382 miles of roads.

Ninety percent of the tax revenue would go to roads and 10 percent to transit.

Gorin offered the compromise of postponing the sales tax measure until the March special election. She and Zane said they wouldn’t agree to delay it until the June or November 2015 elections.

Placing the measure on the November 2014 ballot would have cost the county $250,000 to $300,000, while the cost of a special election on the issue is estimated at $600,000, County Administrator Veronica Ferguson said.

McGuire and Rabbitt agreed to the election on March 3, 2015, and by a straw vote, the board approved the proposal.

The board deferred approving the advisory measure targeting the tax money for roads and a formal vote on the March 2015 date until next Tuesday.

Most of the two dozen people who spoke on the issue also were amenable to postponing the tax measure until next year, provided that the money is spent on the county’s roads. “We prefer going sooner than later, but we are enthusiastically behind the measure. We want a successful measure whenever it goes forward. We are concerned if it migrates toward a transit measure,” said Craig Harrison, of Save Our Sonoma Roads.

Included in the 10 percent transit component of the measure is reducing the cost of student travel on Sonoma County Transit, expanding weekday commute service on core intercity routes and enhancing connectivity for Sonoma County Transit.

--Bay City News