Readers speak out about Measure A on June 2 ballot

Free rides

EDITOR: College Students Ride Free in Fifteen is a pilot program started this year. Sonoma County college students with valid ID can ride any county bus for free. Measure A would allow that program to continue and expand to include K-12 students. I attended schools in Sonoma County, from Village Elementary to Santa Rosa Junior College, and I know that we have excellent academic challenges to offer our students. Let’s not make getting to class safely one of them.

Measure A is an opportunity for Sonoma County to say yes to improved road safety and better transportation. Sonoma County Supervisors Susan Gorin, David Rabbitt, Shirlee Zane, James Gore and Efren Carrillo plan to use the funds raised for repairing our roads, improving routes for bicyclists and pedestrians and funding student, senior and veteran bus passes. More bikes, walkers and bus riders will lead to fewer cars on the road, decreasing both greenhouse gas emissions and road congestion.

I’m voting yes on Measure A because I want improved roads and free bus passes for all Sonoma County students.

CLAIRE-MARIE KRUG

Santa Rosa

No guarantee, no vote

EDITOR: There is no arguing that the roads in Sonoma County need fixing. But Measure A isn’t the way to do it.

First, there is no guarantee that the money will be used to fix the roads. The supervisors ask us to trust them to spend the money on roads. But we trusted prior boards to act responsibly, and they squandered the money on salaries and pensions that far exceed anything found in the private sector. Trust the Board of Supervisors or the city of Santa Rosa? You have got to be kidding.

The city of Santa Rosa received a $6.4 million windfall from increased sales and property taxes, and what did the city do with the money? Not one dime went to fix roads, but $800,000 was proposed to fix a fountain in the middle of a drought. So that should tell you how high a priority road repair is to Santa Rosa.

And if Santa Rosa received a windfall, shouldn’t the county have received one as well? Where is it?

I’m sorry, but without a guarantee that the money will be spent 100 percent on roads in the cities and county, I will vote no.

JOHN NORTHEY

Santa Rosa

Making a difference

EDITOR: On June 2, we have a real opportunity to make a difference in our county. Measure A is a quarter-cent sales tax that would raise money to fix miles of crumbling roads. Our county Board of Supervisors has pledged to spend this money on fixing our roads, with a small percentage going to continue a pilot program that provides free bus passes for veterans and students.

Sonoma County is at a disadvantage because of the way state dollars come down, making us the only county that has to use general fund money for our roads. Because of the state formula, counties with far fewer roads receive enough money from the state to handle their roads with no need to dip into their own coffers. Our supervisors have already invested $40 million from the general fund to pave just under 200 miles of road. But with more than 1,300 miles of road, most of them in various states of disrepair, 200 miles is a mere drop in the bucket.

Every year that we wait it gets five to 10 times more expensive to fix them. The time is now. Yes on Measure A.

MOUSA ABBASI

Santa Rosa

The tax bite

EDITOR: Consider what you really get in disposable income when you earn $10. After federal and state income taxes, about 13.5 percent, then Social Security, 7.65 percent, and other payroll taxes, you have around $7.50 to spend. If you own an average Sonoma County home, another 6.3 percent of median income goes to property taxes. That’s $0.63 of your $10. Now you have $6.87.

If you spend $4 of that on one gallon of gas to get to the store, you will pay another $0.64 in gas taxes (for things like roads), so you really only get to spend $3.36 on actual gas. Now you have $2.87 left. Wait, you can only buy $2.63 worth of products because you still need to pay an 8.75 percent sales tax. So, in total, with your hard-earned $10, you only got to spend $5.99 on something other than taxes.

Now what do you do if you need to pay bridge fare, a parking fee, taxes on your phone bill and so forth?

Guess you shouldn’t have wasted that $5.99 of your $10 before you paid all those taxes, too. Doesn’t leave much to spend to help the economy. You can’t tax your way out of a problem.

TED NELSON

Santa Rosa

Roads can’t wait

EDITOR: I support Measure A. If it doesn’t pass, the repair of our dreadful roads will be postponed, perhaps for many years, and the cost to repair them will ultimately be much higher than today.

I’m impressed by the diverse group of organizations that support the measure: Sonoma County Conservation Action, the North Bay Labor Council, the Santa Rosa Chamber of Commerce, Save Our Sonoma Roads, the Santa Rosa Fire Fighters Association and others. Measure A has been endorsed by local newspapers: The Press Democrat, the Sonoma Index-Tribune, and the Petaluma Argus-Courier.

The cost of this measure to each of us has been estimated to be about $40 per year.

When you compare that to the hundreds of dollars of damage caused to our vehicles from our roads, this is a small price to pay. I am satisfied that the funds raised by Measure A will in fact be spent for the most part on road repairs.

That’s why I urge a yes vote on Measure A.

KAREN ADELSON

Santa Rosa

Regressive tax

EDITOR: I’m writing to ask my fellow Sonomans to oppose Measure A. Sales tax rates are already high and disproportionately harm the poor. At the same time, revenue from less regressive taxes - property taxes, hotel taxes, business taxes - is rising due to the economic recovery, as are sales tax revenues themselves.

Furthermore, the county has not earmarked the money for anything in particular. This worries me as the county has failed to prove that it is a good steward of taxpayer money. We have enormous unfunded pension liabilities looming and, extrapolating from data available at transparentcalifornia.com, the county spends $40-an-hour on janitorial services. Are these the people to whom we should entrust our money?

GABRIEL FROYMOVICH

Healdsburg

No on A

EDITOR: The Press Democrat Editorial Board has asked us to vote for Measure A. If they read their own newspaper, they might have seen an article stating that “Sonoma County’s tax revenue (is) up in all categories, and a healthy amount (is) socked away in reserves (and) the Board of Supervisors is contemplating its next budget cycle with a brighter financial outlook than any year since the recession” (“Rising tax revenue buoys budget outlook,” May 13). They have reserves? And record revenues? And they expect to have an even brighter future? Yet they have spent almost nothing on roads.

Had the county done the minimum to address the safety of our roads - painting lines and installing reflectors, vitally necessary in our fog-shrouded areas - I would have believed they were making an effort to help us.

As far as being held to account in the future, as long as they give the cities the money they promised, they will be re-elected no matter how they spend the money designated for the unincorporated areas.

I believe we should vote no and ask the county to try again with a specific road tax measure that would easily get a two-thirds majority.

Sonoma County roads are “unsafe at any speed” (apologies to Ralph Nader).

COY BROWN

Occidental