With one last chance to renew Measure C, Fresno poised to repeat past failure | Opinion
Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.
Contrary to popular internet memes, Albert Einstein never actually said those words. But if he did, one of the fathers of modern physics might have been referring to the game plan for renewing Fresno County’s transportation tax.
Local voters are getting a break from Measure C during this election cycle. Behind the scenes, though, there’s growing urgency to get things moving for 2026.
Easy to see why. The half-cent sales tax that helps fund roads, bridges, public transit, sidewalks and bike lanes expires June 30, 2027, leaving 2026 as the final chance to seek voter approval before things get messy.
Unfortunately, it doesn’t appear like Measure C proponents from 2022 (i.e. elected officials, county bureaucrats, business owners) learned much from their defeat at the ballot box.
Because the way they’re going about things bears a striking resemblance to how they went about them last time. A Xerox copy of a proven failure.
“What they’re laying out is the exact same process they used in 2022,” said Veronica Garibay, co-executive director for Leadership Counsel for Justice and Accountability. “The only difference that I see is they’re calling it a Measure C task force instead of an executive committee.”
During Wednesday’s meeting of the Fresno County Transportation Authority board, members were lined up to approve an item giving staff the green light to “initiate Measure C renewal activities with a target of placing the measure extension on the November 2026 ballot.”
That didn’t happen, because Fresno City Councilmember Miguel Arias exited the room after FCTA executive director Terry Ogle introduced the item. Arias’ departure left the nine-member board with four members present, shy of a quorum needed for any vote.
A little political gamesmanship for a drama that’s about to enter its final act.
Measure C foes unite
Between April and October of last year, Measure C proponents and opponents from the 2022 election cycle held a series of facilitated meetings to determine if they could find a unified path forward.
After initial reservations, the “Group of 10” (participants included Fresno mayor Jerry Dyer and Clovis mayor Lynne Ashbeck from the Yes on C side and Fresno Building Healthy Communities CEO Sandra Celedon and Garibay from the No side) forged an agreement over how to proceed with the next renewal effort. They then presented that framework to the Fresno Council of Governments during its Oct. 26 meeting and received the board’s approval to start fine-tuning the details.
It was anticipated that the new framework would be brought back as an action item at the next Fresno COG meeting Nov. 30. Except that didn’t happen, and the Group of 10’s hard-forged plan quietly disappeared.
“What happened between October and now has not been public,” Celedon said. “There have not been any public conversations or disagreements about the framework. That hasn’t been vocalized in any public way.”
The primary difference between the Group of 10’s plan and the usual way of doing things is the weight each gives to real community engagement early in the process.
The Group of 10’s framework, based on the Transforming Climate Communities model previously used in Fresno, begins with a series of public meetings that build upon one another and identify community priorities before an initial expenditure plan for the ballot measure gets assembled.
The “usual way of doing things” essentially starts with a few insiders crafting an expenditure plan, then going out and selling it to voters.
“Our plan starts with engaging with people and asking them what they want or are willing to pay,” Celedon said. “As opposed to, ‘Here’s what we’re going to tax you, how we’re going to spend it and we just want to let you know.’”
Framework quietly vanishes
What happened to the Group of 10’s agreed-upon plan? It appears to have been stuffed in a drawer. Dyer, one of the participants, said his fellow mayors on Fresno COG had “serious concerns” that the new framework strips them of some of their decision-making authority.
“Those concerns were expressed privately to (Fresno COG chair and Parlier mayor) Alma Beltrán,” Dyer said via email.
Measure C expenditure plans still have to be approved by each city’s council, the Fresno COG and the FCTA before they go before voters. So claims that elected officials would lose power don’t really hold water.
Mostly, this is about not wanting to expend the time and energy necessary to make this a robust public process.
“One thing is for certain: In order for us to get a measure passed we all need to work together and engage the community more than we have in the past,” Dyer said. “Not just people who are vocal, but the entire community.”
The other wrinkle is Proposition 5, a statewide measure on the November ballot that lowers the threshold for cities and counties to borrow money for affordable housing and public infrastructure projects from a two-thirds voter majority to 55%.
If Proposition 5 passes — a big if considering opponents have outraised supporters nearly 10 to 1 — Fresno city leaders might be tempted to part ways with the county and craft their own transportation tax.
Arias suggested as much before he departed Wednesday’s FCTA board meeting and stalled the Measure C relaunch for at least two months. Fine. We should be in absolutely no hurry to restart a broken process.
By some definitions, that would be insane.
