Sonoma County transportation officials set to vote on putting road tax renewal on November ballot

Sonoma County’s transportation agency expects to look beyond economic and political uncertainty to ask voters in November to renew the sales tax that pays for road repairs, public transit and bicycle and pedestrian pathway extensions.

The 12-member board, with representatives from the county and its nine cities, has shown some hesitancy in moving forward with the quarter-cent tax extension amid the turbulent period dominated by the coronavirus and related financial peril. But on Monday, the group is poised to push ahead and vote to advance the proposed measure that is the key to locking in local infrastructure dollars for another 20 years.

Several interest groups, including those from construction and environmental sectors, continue to maintain the county should delay the renewal of Measure M, which voters passed in 2004. Despite a year of work developing a spending plan and building consensus, the measure should be put on hold, they say, given the economic challenges and rising jobless numbers that could threaten the two-thirds majority vote it needs to pass.

The sales tax also doesn’t expire until April 2025, so there would be time to go back to voters to seek the extension in 2022 or 2024. But all of the money from the original measure already is dedicated to other projects, including the Highway 101 Marin-Sonoma Narrows lane widening. And guaranteeing infrastructure funds this fall will help secure outside grant dollars, said Suzanne Smith, the agency’s executive director.

“The current sales tax measure has been great, but is at the end of its useful life,” she said. “Even in trying circumstances, we are at a point in time where we need local dollars for transportation now more than ever, because we need to create jobs and provide infrastructure projects if the federal government does a stimulus package focused on infrastructure.”

A majority of Sonoma County Transportation Authority’s board members last month supported going forward in November, even as some questioned if 67% of voters would be willing to tax themselves again ahead of or during a recession.

The general election also follows the March primary when two other measures — one to extend the SMART train’s quarter-cent tax and another to create a new half-cent tax toward countywide fire preparedness — each failed.

“It’s been real clear the last couple years that people have tax fatigue,” said Brian Sobel, a political analyst and former Petaluma councilman. “I think more than normal times they need to be understanding of where the voters are on this to decide whether or not to move ahead.”

But a factor working in favor of the road tax extension this fall is the lack of competition with too many other ballot measures. As many as six local cities also may look to place general tax renewals on the ballot, but several other regional and statewide measures have fallen off and only a possible quarter-cent county tax for mental health funding is still up for consideration.

Without a formal opposition campaign, Sobel said, the chances of success for the transportation tax go up even more.

He and the majority of agency board members think the measure still would require a funded opposition campaign to the tune of hundreds of thousands of dollars, but not half a million dollars or more if it has to overcome negative messaging, he said.

Where the money for any such campaign will come from, however, remains an open-ended question that could sink the measure before it even lands on the ballot.

“It’s a big question. If there’s not a campaign, can it win?” said Logan Harvey, the board’s vice chairman and mayor of the city of Sonoma. “We want it to pass, but a two-thirds vote is tough.”

Even through the end of last week, agency staff has been fine-tuning the measure’s spending plan to try to please key interest groups. The current breakdown has 65% of the projected $26 million in annual revenue going to road upgrades, with the remainder split among projects that emphasize alternative modes of travel and reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

The construction industry at-large is satisfied with the share toward roads, but still won’t commit to bankrolling the campaign. Environmentalists are less thrilled with the 35% slice — 40% if some overlapping funding is counted — even though it represents triple what was in the original measure for bicycle and pedestrian paths and more than doubles what goes to the county’s three bus systems.

“So many cities have passed climate change resolutions, and we need to put our money where our mouth is,” said county Supervisor Lynda Hopkins, who recently challenged her three supervisor colleagues on the transportation agency’s board for not showing greater leadership on the issue. Hopkins is next in line to become chairwoman of the Board of Supervisors and said she plans to appoint herself to the transportation agency to seek real movement on climate change.

Emmett Hopkins, the supervisor’s husband, also has been involved in negotiating more of the measure’s funds toward action on climate change. Additional dollars spent on bus and bicycle projects would be preferable, he said, but he does not imagine actively opposing the measure and it’s more a question of if he would remain neutral or officially support it.

Ultimately, board members have had to be pragmatic about the measure, said county Supervisor Susan Gorin, chairwoman of the transportation agency. More polling is planned in June to gauge voter appetite for the tax measure under the cloud of the coronavirus, but surveys conducted last fall showed a greater willingness among voters to support it with more money committed to roads, not the alternatives.

“I would be sad if we let the perfect be the enemy of the good,” Gorin said of the measure’s current spending ratio. “But we need to go into this with our eyes wide open on how COVID has affected the economy and consumer confidence. And we need to look at the polling with great seriousness, and if it shows they will not support it, then we’ll need to shelve it and revisit it in two years.”