Petaluma exploring sales tax measure, again

Petaluma is once again exploring putting a sales tax measure on the ballot, and nearly two-thirds of local residents polled agree the city needs additional funding.

The poll, commissioned by the city of Petaluma and conducted by California-based Fairbank, Maslin, Maullin, Metz & Associates, was conducted to see how Petalumans might vote on various types of sales tax measures should they appear on the November ballot.

The pollsters gathered responses from 400 voters using landlines and cellphones from March 6-13.

Polling showed respondents felt any funds raised should be kept local, be used to maintain rapid emergency response rates and go toward repairing Petaluma’s failing roads.

One of the options that did well was to use a half-cent sales tax, lasting for a finite amount of time, to fund a specific project.

Petaluma Mayor David Glass said he would like to see that half-cent special tax last for 30 years, to fund improvements to the city’s rapidly deteriorating roads. It’s something, based on his experience during the last attempt to pass a general tax, he thinks would go over well with voters.

“(It) would be for a specified duration, and it would go toward what the public wants it to,” he said. “I believe those numbers will come in well in excess of the 66 percent we need,” he said, meaning that a special tax must be approved by a two-thirds vote, rather than the simple majority needed for a general tax.

In 2014, voters shot down a general tax measure that would have raised the sales tax by a percentage point, taking the tax from 8.25 percent (tied for lowest in the county with Cloverdale, Sonoma and Windsor) up to 9.25 percent, which would have tied it for highest in the county, with Cotati. The measure lost with 56.7 percent of Petalumans against it, and 43.3 percent for it.

Follow-up polling showed “voters were uncomfortable with the amount, with the permanency and because priorities were not dedicated as they would have been had the tax been structured as a special tax,” City Manager John Brown wrote in a February memo this year to the City Council.

“It was basically a blank check,” Glass said, speaking disparagingly of the 2014 measure.

Supervisor David Rabbitt said based on his recent experience trying to fund a countywide roads project through a tax, he doesn’t think the public is ready for more taxes right now.

He also cautioned that Measure M, the tax that funds Highway 101’s expansion, is up for renewal in 2024.

“I would hate for us to put so many measures on the ballot that people are going to get weary and not vote for the ones that I think are going to really make the difference, and complete the freeway project once and for all.”

He said he was not surprised 2014’s general tax measure failed.

“I thought that was overly ambitious,” he said. “I was surprised they even offered that to the voters because to me, that would have been a nonstarter.”

Council member Mike Healy, who favored the 2014 general tax proposal, said “obviously some lessons were learned.”

“I think what the polling shows, then and now, is that the public is more sensitized to certain needs than others so the public certainly perceives the need to fix the streets and sidewalks and they certainly need to address our (traffic) circulation challenge,” he said.

Onita Pellegrini, CEO of the Petaluma Area Chamber of Commerce, said the chamber did not oppose the 2014 general tax. But she added that any tax increase is double-sided.

“Generally with raising the sales tax, making us a different rate than the rest of the county, sometimes people will choose to purchase goods elsewhere,” she said. “But, if it’s only a quarter cent or a half cent, and it’s something that will go toward benefiting the community, that’s something you can live with.”

As to whether the chamber would be in favor of supporting a tax measure this November, she said it depended on its structure, what it would go toward and whether it contained a sunset clause.

Glass said he expected more polling in June, once the council has reviewed and discussed the recent polling results. The overall funding to place a tax measure on the ballot, including consulting and polling could range from $46,000 to $61,000, Brown’s memo said.

Larry Zimmer, deputy director for the city’s Public Works and Utilities Department, said the money was needed “quite badly.”

“Currently our roads are deteriorating faster than we can repair them, so the condition is continually getting worse,” he said. “It’s a struggle to find any significant money to do paving. ... (The roads) are in desperate need of it.”

To adequately repair and maintain Petaluma’s ailing streets could cost the city $76 million to $128 million, according to Brown. If a 30-year, half-cent tax makes it on to the November ballot, it would generate $180 million over a 30-year span.