What's at stake?
Measure C is responsible for about $10.1 billion in transportation funding, though only $2 billion comes from local funding. The remaining $8.1 billion comes from state and federal funding.
Fresno County voters have seen a downpour of Measure C renewal news over the last month, and even the rosiest forecasts expect the stormy atmosphere to continue in the coming weeks.
The contentious summer saga has seen activists successfully lobby to get representation on the sales tax’s advisory board, a member of the steering committee was dismissed and quickly reinstated in a messy and confusing public argument, the looming possibility of competing measures being introduced and much more.
Increased scrutiny over the measure’s renewal effort comes as local leaders and advocates make one last desperate effort to save the critical transportation sales tax set to expire in 2027.
At the July 17 Fresno City Council meeting, county transportation officials said Measure C is responsible for the county seeing $10.1 billion in transportation funding, though only $2 billion comes from local funding. The remaining $8.1 billion comes from state and federal funding.
To lose that funding, which has paid for multiple transportation projects across the county, would be a massive loss to Fresno, especially its rural communities.
The recent moves have been largely backed by competing ideological blocs in the world of Fresno transportation, who are already beginning to lobby to help create the version of Measure C that they want to see on the 2026 ballot.
And all this is happening well before the Fresno Council of Government policy board has even begun to discuss specific proposals for funding allocations and categories to prioritize with this next measure.
Alma Beltran, chair of the Fresno Council Of Governments policy board, and one of the faces of a recent point-of-friction for the Measure C renewal effort, told Fresnoland last week that “I don’t expect it to get toned down anytime soon.”
Brooke Ashjian is either back or he never left
At the July 17 Fresno City Council meeting, county transportation officials announced that one of the city’s three representatives on a key sales tax advisory board had been removed following the member’s comments to local media outlets that the county board found to be a breach of policy.
The news was met with swift opposition by the city, whose effort led to that same member being reinstated to the county committee on Tuesday — just days after the announcement was made.
Though the back-and-forth is now seemingly over, some miscommunication remains between both sides of the aisle as it relates to the future of Measure C discourse. Brooke Ashjian, CEO of a local paving company, was removed following comments he made on a KMJ radio podcast on July 10.
How Ashjian’s reinstatement was handled depends on who you ask.
Ashjian sent a letter to Robert Phipps, executive director of COG, earlier this week saying his removal was “invalid” and he demanded an apology. Ashjian also said on the “Unfiltered” podcast Tuesday that Fresno Mayor Jerry Dyer might pull the city out of the Measure C committee if Ashjian wasn’t reinstated – comments the mayor hasn’t confirmed or denied.
Beltran told Fresnoland earlier this week that the reinstatement was contingent on Ashjian agreeing to follow the rules of the committee. She added that no apology was given, and that she did not believe the City of Fresno pressured COG to reinstate Ashjian — instead framing the move as a collaborative effort between the two parties.
When Ashjian was asked by Frensoland to confirm whether he agreed to follow the rules Beltran laid out, he responded via text, “I don’t know who that is…and no idea what she is referring to…”
Dyer issued a statement on Wednesday morning to Fresnoland saying that he would now be focusing his efforts on Measure C renewal, and not comment further on Ashjian’s predicament. He did not respond to a question about whether he considered leaving the Measure C coalition.
When did the drama with the steering committee begin?
Frustration with Measure C has been brewing for years as the critical transportation sales tax measure approaches its June 2027 expiration date. The last attempt to renew Measure C failed in 2022.
Those frustrations came to a recent boiling point, however, after the Measure C steering committee saw aggressive expansion.
On June 27, months of lobbying by local activist group Transportation For All finally bore fruit when the Fresno COG policy board voted 11-4 to add 12 new members to the steering committee — all from TFA. Though the vote comfortably passed, that hasn’t stopped county leaders from voicing skepticism about the new members.
A spokesperson for TFA told Fresnoland in a statement that “it’s unfortunate that some of the headlines over the past few weeks have distracted from the real progress being made and the fact that there’s significant consensus on what people want to see for Fresno County’s transportation future.”
“That’s where our focus remains,” the statement later adds, “doing the hard work, together, to develop a plan that can be broadly supported by voters for a transportation future we all deserve.”
Fresno County Supervisor Garry Bredefeld, who appeared at the June 27 meeting to serve as an alternate for county representative Brian Pacheco, called TFA a group of “radicals” who don’t accurately represent what the county wants to see from the measure through a post on the social media platform X.
Bredefeld’s post included his desire to see 80% of Measure C’s funding go toward fixing residential roads.
Should the steering committee and COG policy board make it all the way to the goal line with their majority-agreed-upon proposal for the final version of Measure C, it’ll still be up to the county board of supervisors to approve the drafted measure and put it on the ballot.
And competing political interests and Ashjian’s awkward dismissal and quick reinstatement aren’t the only questions and narratives plaguing the fledgling coalition.
Reporting on Measure C renewal efforts ‘blown out of proportion’
At the July 8 Fresno County Board of Supervisors meeting, Supervisor Buddy Mendes suggested that a newly formed group at COG might violate California’s open meeting laws, known as the Ralph M Brown Act.
Mendes said that he wanted to distance FCTA from the group over his concerns, and that he sent a letter with similar information to Clovis Councilmember Lynn Ashbeck, Mendota Mayor Victor Martinez and Beltran.
Reporting from the supervisor’s comments quickly followed in local media outlets — reporting that Mendes said was “blown out of proportion.”
“I did write them a letter, and the Brown Act was not mentioned in the letter,” Mendes told Fresnoland. “All I told them was we never formed an ad hoc committee at FCTA. The board never authorized an ad hoc committee for FCTA. If you want to sit on this facilitation group, you’re there as a member of COG or as a private citizen. That’s all it said.”
Competing measure and opposition still a possibility
Also on the “Unfiltered” podcast Tuesday, host Darius Assemi — a local developer and owner of Granville Homes and media outlet GV Wire — said that he wanted to see an appropriate amount of money allocated to traffic mitigation and pot hole repair.
Assemi did not specify how much of a funding allocation or percentage he would like to see dedicated to those categories, but he made clear that a Measure C proposal without those issues focused on would be a nonstarter.
“I’m going to oppose it. I’m going to spend dollars opposing it,” Assemi said on the podcast.
Assemi’s comments highlight just how precarious the Measure C renewal effort will be for COG to navigate. Even if all the aforementioned issues go away, a competing measure can always be introduced on the ballot. Just a few weeks ago, there was discussion that county voters could get to vote between three competing transportation measures on the 2026 ballot.
The allure of a competing ballot may also be too hard to ignore for county voters, especially those who disagree with whatever the final version of Measure C looks like.
A competing measure would also have to be introduced through signatures, which introduces another interesting wrinkle into the equation.
Measure C requires support from two-thirds of voters to pass.
A signature-backed proposal, however, only needs a simple majority to pass — or, 50% plus one. That could make such a measure tempting even among voters who approve of the new Measure C proposal, given the critical need for transportation dollars to go to the county – especially its rural communities.
No special interest group has officially announced plans to introduce their own transportation sales tax measure on the 2026 ballot, though there have been discussions.
The TFA spokesperson said that the steering committee recently finished a community engagement process that saw the county residents begin to share what transportation categories “matter to them the most and are most urgently needed of investment.”
Those findings will be presented publicly for the first time at the next two COG policy board meetings.
“…we expect the board to receive a presentation summarizing the shared vision and priorities from residents from across the county who participated in the first phase of our community visioning process,” the TFA spokesperson said in a statement. “The board will also receive and have an opportunity to approve the steering committee’s adopted vision and priorities statement, which reflects the incredible amount of consensus on what the vast majority of residents aspire for our shared transportation future.”
The next Measure C steering committee will be on July 30. The next Fresno COG policy board meeting will be on July 31.
Comments are closed.