Sales tax, Rainier connector dominate Petaluma candidates forum

Stands on Petaluma’s proposed sales tax and a Rainier Avenue crosstown connector separated the seven candidates seeking seats on the Petaluma City Council in a pre-election forum at City Hall Wednesday night.

Five candidates are vying for three City Council seats on the Nov. 4 ballot, while two candidates are seeking the mayor’s chair, which is elected separately in Petaluma.

The forum, sponsored by the Association of University Women Petaluma and the Sonoma County League of Women Voters, posed several questions to the candidates to help voters differentiate the crowded ballot. Mail-in ballots go out Monday.

Three-term Councilman Mike Harris is vacating his seat to challenge Mayor David Glass.

Incumbents Teresa Barrett and Chris Albertson are seeking to retain their seats on the council, while Dave King, Ken Quinto and Janice Cader-Thompson are challenging.

A proposed tax hike, called Measure Q on the ballot, asks voters to approve a 1 percent increase in the existing 8.25 percent local sales tax rate. It is a general tax, meaning it requires a simple majority to pass and it doesn’t expire.

The proceeds - estimated at $10 million a year - would go into the city’s general fund, to be spent at the council’s discretion. In deciding to ask voters to increase the tax, the council pledged it would spend the money on new police officers, street repairs and traffic relief, including the Rainier connector. They said the money would be itemized in a separate budget with additional public oversight.

But Glass, Cader-Thompson and Barrett oppose it, arguing that the council could spend it on employee pensions or “personnel perks.”

The others, Harris, King, Albertson and Quinto, said the tax is needed to fix the city’s roads, which are among the worst in the Bay Area, and as a dependable funding source for Rainier.

King answered a question about whether funds should be earmarked for Rainier with the most specific plan. He said he would want to allocate at least one-quarter of Measure Q’s proceeds annually to roads and infrastructure. For the first several years of the tax, he said, a portion should be set aside for Rainier to assure that it can be built.

“The roads have an ?“$80 million hole in them, literally,” he said.

Glass argued that earmarks leave “a lot of wiggle room.” He, Barrett and Cader-Thompson all supported a half-cent special sales tax for infrastructure instead of Measure Q.

City-sponsored polling showed about 84 percent of voters cited roads as the city’s top priority. But the poll also showed that likely voters would not support a tax at the two-thirds level needed to pass a special tax, which would have been required to funnel money to specific projects or departments.

Harris, Albertson, King and Quinto all support building a crosstown connector that would go under Highway 101 when Caltrans finds funding to widen the freeway through north Petaluma. Cader-Thompson has long opposed the project.

Glass and Barrett, both of whom have said they doubt it will ever be built, argued that voters should have been asked whether they support a special tax to pay for Rainier.

Harris said he has been “a steadfast supporter of Rainier” while Glass has opposed it, and has voted against developments like the Friedman’s shopping center whose impact fees fund infrastructure projects.

Glass countered that he has “fully supported (Rainier) since it became a real possibility.” He said previous incarnations weren’t “achievable.”

Glass said he “didn’t vote against Friedman Brothers,” but that he wanted a different version that included a skilled nursing facility. Developers said they were never seriously considering a care home at the property instead of the commercial and retail space they proposed.

Glass and Barrett voted to reject the environmental impact report for the Friedman’s-Deer Creek Village center; the vote was 4-3 to approve the report.

Quinto touted his involvement in several youth groups, sports and school committees, and his residency in the city’s northeast sector, which has historically had little representation on the council. He said the city needs economic development to pay for the much-needed infrastructure improvements.

Cader-Thompson, a former councilwoman who lost re-election in 2002, said she wanted to represent regular people and would seek to increase cooperation on the council.

Albertson encouraged voters to look at his track record as a councilman and trust that he would carry out residents’ wishes to fix roads, build Rainier and repair other infrastructure.

King, a Petaluma resident since 1991 who has run a law firm for 20 years, said his range of endorsements set him apart.

“Liberal to conservative, business to labor. I think that reflects where I’m coming from,” he said.

The forum was recorded for future broadcasts on Petaluma Community Access TV.

Another forum is scheduled for 6 p.m. Wednesday at the Petaluma Sheraton Hotel.

You can reach Lori A. Carter at 762-7297 or lori.carter@pressdemocrat.com. On Twitter @loriacarter.