Sonoma County road tax proposal Measure A in hands of voters

The fate of the most significant single bid in a generation to repair Sonoma County’s crumbling road system - identified as one of the worst in the Bay Area for the past decade - will be decided in a June 2 special election that asks voters whether taxpayers should pony up more money to pay for a public good that most people use every day.

The proposed sales tax increase, advanced by the Board of Supervisors and backed by an uncommon alliance of labor, business and environmental groups, amounts to a political gamble. Supporters are stressing what they say is a critical need to ramp up road spending before repair costs become insurmountable. Their bet is that they can convince voters that elected officials representing the county and its nine cities will spend the money as they say they will - on roads and related transportation programs, and not on other pressing needs, such as rising public employee compensation costs.

The vote comes amid high-profile attempts by the county to rein in skyrocketing expenses for employee pensions - up more than 500 percent since 2000 - and to win back public trust in the fiscal management of local government.

The ballot proposal, Measure A, would increase sales taxes across Sonoma County by a quarter-?cent for five years . If approved, it would go into effect immediately.

Supporters, including road repair advocates, the county’s largest organized labor coalition, its most influential business advocacy group and the largest local environmental organization, say the county’s roads are in dire need of a big financial investment, and that everyone stands to benefit from much-needed infrastructure fixes. They argue the tax increase will add more jobs to the local economy and improve travel for motorists, cyclists and public safety responders.

Opponents, primarily taxpayer watchdog groups, say the measure lacks guarantees the new revenue will go to roads. They also question whether the tax increase is even needed, with local government coffers in the best financial shape since the recession.

Supervisor David Rabbitt, who is pushing hard for Measure A’s passage, says it represents the best way to shore up road funding and head off a deepening fiscal crisis.

“We can’t afford to wait any longer,” Rabbitt told about ?25 people at a public forum last month in Petaluma. “If we do, the roads are going to be gravel and it’s going to cost 10 or 15 times as much - it doesn’t make sense.”

The tax measure is being put to voters about five years after county public works officials raised the specter of a failing road system in the unincorporated area. At the time, they warned the Board of Supervisors that the county had only enough money to fix a small fraction of the county-governed 1,384-mile system, a shortfall that would leave much of the rest of the network to degrade into gravel. Amid public uproar, the Board of Supervisors rejected that plan. But while it has made some short-term upgrades over the past few years covering nearly 200 miles, the county has struggled to come up with a long-term blueprint to overhaul its network. For several years now, officials have signaled some sort of tax increase would be needed.

Measure A would generate $20 million in the first year, with annual revenues expected to rise by 3 percent thereafter. The proceeds would be split, with 44 percent - or about $8.7 million - going to the county, and the remainder divided between the nine cities, based on population and road miles. The measure needs a simple majority to pass.

Because the initiative is a general sales tax measure, and not specified for roads, annual revenue would be deposited into each jurisdiction’s general fund, and could be used for any government purpose. County supervisors and elected officials from Petaluma and Santa Rosa have publicly stated that they intend to spend the money on roads. The county and Santa Rosa have specified that 10 percent of the revenue would be allocated to transit-?related programs, including free county bus fare for college students and military veterans.

The seven other cities have not taken formal positions on the measure, but their elected officials have said they intend to also spend their portion of the tax revenue on roads and related transportation infrastructure projects.

County officials have acknowledged they chose a general tax measure over a specific measure earmarked for roads because they doubted whether they could secure the required two-thirds majority for a dedicated tax.

That decision has riled Measure A opponents, as has the way the ballot proposal is worded. It allows for funding to be spent on “general government purposes such as public safety, local road and pothole repair, senior, student and veterans transit and other essential services.”

The language puts almost no limits on how local governments spend the money, critics say, raising the possibility that the funding will be diverted to other programs.

“My concern is that with the wording, money isn’t going to be actually spent on roads - we need the help, but how can we trust them?” said Cazadero resident Natasha Pehrson. “And I’ve got to tell you, we’re all concerned up here that even if we approve this, nothing will get done in our neighborhood.”

County officials have estimated they could fix an additional?160 miles of roads with their share of the tax revenue, but they have not specified which roads they intend to fix. (Rabbitt has said the county would fix 650 miles of roads under the measure, but that number was based on a sales tax increase over 20 years, as was initially proposed by the county last year).

Mail-in ballots for the special election went out Monday. Voter turnout during the special election is expected to be low, around 30 to 35 percent, according to the county Registrar of Voters.

With less than a month until Election Day, supporters of Measure A are ramping up their campaign - pouring money into mailers, calling likely voters and canvassing neighborhoods. Fundraisers have amassed nearly $60,000, and nearly double that amount has been spent on polling, advertisements and other voter outreach such as operating phone banks, campaign records show.

David McCuan, a Sonoma State University political science professor, said the stakes for getting the tax measure through this June are high.

“If this doesn’t pass, the chance of getting it on the ballot again in 2016 is very difficult because this will become a political weight on supervisors,” McCuan said. “It will chill any future chances, so this becomes a very important moment, but the problem is getting people to the polls.”

Rabbitt said if the measure fails, the county will continue investing general fund dollars in road upkeep, but he said without a significant investment now, it will become more expensive year by year.

“If this doesn’t work?” Rabbitt said. “Status quo.”

The county’s rollout last year of the sales tax measure was not smooth. With an number of other tax measures on last November’s ballot, supervisors pushed back the election until March, then postponed it again, citing the need for more time to educate voters about the tax proposal and the state of the county’s roads. County officials also shortened their initial 20-year horizon for the measure to five years in hopes of drumming up support for the tax increase, arguing that the shorter time frame will allow the public to hold elected officials accountable to spending money on roads. They also dropped an advisory measure, highlighting their intent to spend tax proceeds on roads, which was set to accompany the proposal. Polling indicated it would confuse voters.

The special election will cost $361,603.

The bid for a tax increase comes amid chronic funding shortfalls for road repair, which relies primarily on state gas tax revenue, a flat source for years. Before 2010, the county’s own contribution to road repair also had dipped considerably.

Over the past two years, the county has sought to reverse that trend, allocating $40.8 million from the county general fund over four years to fix and pave 198 miles of county roads. Rabbitt and other supervisors pledged to continue that level of funding regardless of the measure’s fate. But a greater investment is needed to get ahead of the problem, supervisors say.

“Roads are our biggest and most expensive asset,” Rabbitt said. “We’re asking people to sacrifice a little by going into their pocket for five years, so we can get on top of this. If we don’t, the roads are going to stay lousy and people are going to keep complaining.”

Bringing just the county-governed road network up to good condition could cost an estimated $954 million over the next 20 years, according to the county.

“In the past, supervisors completely took their eye off the ball and didn’t invest keeping our infrastructure up,” said Craig Harrison, co-founder of Save our Sonoma Roads, an advocacy group that supports Measure A and is campaigning for it. “Now, we are paying a really hellacious price, and we need this investment. We’re here to hold our elected officials accountable to spend the money on our roads.”

Measure A opponents, however, contend the proposed tax increase is a political grab bag for special interests, echoing concerns voiced by residents that there is no guarantee the tax revenue will be spent on roads.

“Giving supervisors an unrestricted pot of money is sometimes a difficult ticket to sell, and instead of committing the funds specifically to road repair, they are asking us to trust them that the money is going to be used as they say it will be,” said Dan Drummond, executive director of the Sonoma County Taxpayers’ Association, which opposes the measure. “I believe that Supervisor Rabbitt will do everything he can to ensure money is spent on roads, but unfortunately he is only one vote out of five, and he does not control his other colleagues on the board.”

To make up for stagnant gas tax revenue, supervisors should divert more of the rebounding local tax revenue to road repairs, Drummond said. Countywide, revenue from property, sales and hotel bed taxes is up this year. In the unincorporated county alone, sales taxes brought in $1.5 billion during 2013, more than a 12 percent increase over 2012, and it’s continuing to rise, according to the county tax collector’s office.

But Drummond cited other programs he said were being given greater priority by the supervisors, including building affordable housing, bolstering support services for homeless people, funding universal preschool, increasing access to open space and taking on initiatives to adapt to climate change.

“Supervisors have different priorities,” Drummond said. “Road repair seems to be an afterthought, and only funded if we pay extra for it.”

Rabbitt pushed back, citing the county’s extra spending on roads of late. Few other counties make such contributions from their general funds, he said.

“You don’t do one thing and forget about everything else,” Rabbitt said. “We’re moving forward on many fronts, but the only issue that we’ve funded to the degree of $40.8 million is roads.”

If the measure passes, some county and city officials have signaled that the Sonoma County Transportation Authority would have a role in overseeing the tax revenue, including annual audits.

Labor and construction groups, whose members stand to benefit from work funded by the extra tax money, have backed the measure with hefty financial donations to the campaign. Contributors include BoDean Co., the Santa Rosa-based asphalt manufacturer, and Ghilotti Bros. Inc., the Marin County-based construction giant, which each donated $15,000. Other supporters include the Operating Engineers Local 3, the North Coast Builders Exchange, the Northern California Engineering Contractors Association, Sonoma County Conservation Action and the North Bay Labor Council.

“It’s good to put local people to work - that’s important, and unfortunately the whole country has really gotten behind on keeping up its infrastructure,” said Lisa Maldonado, executive director of the North Bay Labor Council, which represents 30,000 members in 71 unions and labor associations. “We see Measure A as a fair solution to a pretty serious and obvious problem. The local streets and roads are something we’ve needed to repair for a long, long time.”

Environmental advocates said the tax measure gives them a chance to push for greater public transportation and bicycle infrastructure. They’ve cheered the 10 percent carve-out for transit programs proposed by the county and Santa Rosa.

“I want to be positioned, if this comes back in five years, to have a bigger conversation about investing in the future of public transportation in this county,” said Dennis Rosatti, executive director of Sonoma County Conservation Action.

Construction groups said they plan to press for some local-hiring provisions in the work that would be funded by the measure.

“There’s nothing in works right now, but it’s definitely a possibility going forward,” said John Bly, executive vice president of the Northern California Engineering Contractors Association. “I’m a strong believer that if local contractors and workers get these jobs, the tax money has a better chance of staying in the local economy - that impact is huge.”

Taxpayer watchdogs and some county residents said they worried that amid rising pension costs, supervisors would use additional general fund dollars to boost public employee benefits.

“Pension costs are going up, and as they do, they sap funds that could be used for roads,” Drummond said. “We’re concerned that if the measure were to pass, bargaining units will be extra aggressive seeking raises and additional pension and health benefits.”

At a town hall meeting about roads organized by Supervisor Efren Carrillo in Monte Rio on Thursday, a group of residents echoed those concerns.

“We desperately need our roads to be fixed, but the wording of the measure seems pretty vague to me,” said Linda Baswell of Cazadero. “The measure doesn’t say revenue is going to be used specifically for roads repair, and in my mind, other essential services could include pensions.”

Carrillo said he plans to vote in favor of spending money on roads but also said he can’t speak for his board colleagues.

“While I’m here - and who knows how long I’ll be here - I’ll vote that the money be used for roads,” Carrillo said. “We have a plan.”

Anne Taylor, a Petaluma retiree, said she also has concerns that revenue wouldn’t be spent on roads, but she said she was convinced by Rabbitt at last month’s forum on Measure A.

“We really do need money to work on roads, and I think they’ve committed to that,” she said.

You can reach Staff Writer Angela Hart at 526-8503 or angela.hart@pressdemocrat.com. On Twitter @ahartreports.

Editor’s note: The general countywide sales tax proposed under Measure A would go into effect immediately if passed by voters in the special election. A previous version of this story said the effective date would be January 2016, based on inaccurate information from county and Measure A campaign officials.