Con-Measure C: Road tax proposal moves too fast without enough public input in decisions

For the past eight decades the League of Women Voters of Fresno has worked to improve our region through civic engagement, policy advocacy, and more recently, legal action on the inseparable issues of land use, transportation, and air quality. Slowing our area’s notorious urban sprawl has been a key issue in the fight against climate change brought about in large part by our current reliance on fossil-fuel powered transit.

Fresno County transportation agencies are now engaged in an aggressive effort to renew our county’s transportation sales tax, well into our grandchildren’s lifetimes. The League has been engaged in the development of Measure C since its first iteration in the mid-1980s. But based on our transportation position, we have real reservations with the current proposal for extending the measure.

Our position on transportation includes the following important elements: citizen participation in transportation planning, development of alternatives to the private automobile, public transit with flexible scheduling that gives priority to those dependent on such transportation, and developing systems that are consistent with our Valley’s critical need to improve air quality.

Given the proposal’s 30-year plan for billions of dollars in taxpayer spending and the impacts of those expenditures on the lives of residents of every age and level of mobility, an inclusive public process is critical to ensuring equity throughout our region. But that’s not happening.

Although the current Measure C does not expire until 2027, backers inexplicably are pushing to place the renewal measure on this November’s ballot. Public engagement has taken on the form of surveys, rather than conversations; on-line ads have replaced policy discussions.

While the state of California and even the city of Fresno agree that we need to enhance “access to sustainable transportation modes,” the new Measure C proposal would spend billions to do transportation as we in Fresno County have always done it. That is, more and wider roads, speedy access to newly minted homes on scarce farmland, and of course, unbreathable air.

The renewal of Measure C proposes the approximate spending percentages to be distributed as follows: 60% on the rehabilitation and maintenance of existing streets and roads; 6% for cities and the county to spend as needed in their own jurisdictions; 15% for modifications of regional connecting roads in the county (allotted 50% for urban county needs and 50% for rural needs); 9% for transit (reduced from 19.7% in the previous Measure C); 1% for bicycle-pedestrian facilities (reduced from 4% previously).

We are concerned that the current proposal fails to directly address climate change. The growing uncertainty and lack of progress in reducing greenhouse gas emissions means all discussions of transportation infrastructure and investment must center on this crisis and the need to build climate-resilient communities.

A broad coalition of advocates from every sector of our community has called repeatedly on the Measure C renewal committee to slow down the process and bring the community into the discussion, but without success.

It’s time for the leaders on the Measure C renewal committee to recognize they have failed to meaningfully engage the public at this time of unprecedented crisis and deep concern for the future. They appear to be stuck in the past with our very future at stake.

Residents of Fresno County deserve better. There is time to regroup, engage in a genuine public process, and to address our urgent needs for better air quality, reduction of greenhouse gases, better transit services, and an equitable distribution of sales tax revenues.

This story was originally published June 5, 2022 at 5:00 AM.