FRESNO, Calif. – After government-led efforts to renew a long-standing Fresno County transportation tax known as Measure C collapsed earlier this month, a coalition of community groups announced a proposal that could replace the tax when it expires next year.
Since 1987, Measure C has contributed billions to fixing roads and transportation systems around the county. Efforts to renew that tax through government channels ended earlier this month over policy differences with the Fresno County Board of Supervisors. A previous effort to renew Measure C in 2022 also dissolved after it failed to receive the two-thirds of votes required at that time to pass.
A new community coalition, working collectively under the slogan “Moving Forward Together,” proposed a sales tax this month to replace Measure C. The new measure would similarly impose a half-cent sales tax per dollar for transportation needs around the county.
However, Measure C expires next year, and many community advocates and city leaders who had been part of the most recent Measure C renewal effort have banded together for the new proposal – including some who don’t typically share the same stage in public.
“Thousands of Fresno County residents came together to shape a vision for a better transportation future,” Veronica Garibay, co-director of the non-profit Leadership Counsel for Justice and Accountability, said at a press conference. “Over the last year…we visited every corner of our community to hear directly from residents.”
Fresno Mayor Jerry Dyer, who stood by community groups, said he would have liked county officials to finish what they had started to renew the existing Measure C, but acknowledged the reality of the situation.
“It was my hope that we could go through the process that we have over the last two measures, and that was to have every city in Fresno County pass this measure, and then to have the county not only pass it, but then to put it on the ballot,” Dyer said.
The community-led effort to renew the county transportation tax is now in a race against time to get signatures approved for the November ballot.
A committee within the Fresno Council of Governments, which was spearheading the Measure C renewal process, approved an expenditure plan late last year after months of community meetings. But the Fresno County Board of Supervisors failed to bring the plan up for a vote in early January – at a meeting that Fresno City Councilmember Miguel Arias described as “the final straw that broke the camel’s back.”
“That then eliminated any opportunity for us to get the board of supervisors on the timeline for renewal of Measure C,” Arias said, “and forced us to go to the public directly for a ballot measure.”
Arias claimed the Fresno County Board of Supervisors chair Garry Bredefeld and other supervisors wouldn’t consider any expenditure plan that had involved so much community engagement – but Bredefeld denied that in an interview with Fresnoland, instead arguing that he had been pushing for more of the funding to be spent on local roads within cities and towns.
Of the $7.4 billion estimated to be generated from the sales tax, the current plan proposes that 65% will be spent on fixing and improving local roads; 25% on transit improvements, including in rural areas; 5% on improving transportation between communities; 4% on emerging transportation; and 1% on oversight and administration.
For comparison, the Measure C sales tax currently in place dedicates 35% to local roads; 30% to regional transportation; 25% to regional public transit; and the rest to grade separation, environmental enhancement and administration.
Organizers need to collect a minimum of 22,000 signatures on their petition in order to qualify for the November ballot, though they say they’re aiming for 35,000.
If the measure is placed on the ballot, it would need a simple majority – 50 percent of the votes plus one – in order to pass.
