What's at stake?
Measure C, Fresno County's half-cent sales tax in place since 1986, is expiring next year. The clock is running out for leaders to find a compromise on transportation priorities before the tax expires.
After nearly four years of debate, a key committee voted Thursday to move forward with a new plan for Fresno County’s transportation sales tax — bringing together factions frequently at odds in a rare show of consensus.
An overwhelming majority — 93% — of the Measure C Steering Committee passed what they called a “high priority” expenditure plan that sets aside nearly 70% of tax revenue to fix and improve local roads, and 25% to maintain and expand public transit.
Twenty-eight members voted “yes,” with just two in dissent: Karen Musson, representing the City of Fresno, and Lee Dulap, representing Fresno County. Eight members were absent.
“I think as a whole, the “high priorities” proposal is a working good compromise,” said Larry Westerlund, a consultant and former Fresno city councilmember.
Fresno Council of Governments staff say the plan will best address the community’s top priorities: getting all roads in the county up to “good” pavement condition and having enough money to both preserve current transit service while planning for their expansions, too.
The draft plan is a significant paradigm shift in transportation policy for Fresno County — adopting a “fix-it-first” mentality instead of the old approach focused on freeways and road-building. That change reflects top priorities identified by residents over the past year.
Polling results shared by transportation planners Thursday reflected an overwhelming majority of support from Fresno County residents to fix local roads, with about 75% in support of a tax that would do so.
While the overall amount of revenue planned for roads hasn’t changed much from the version of Measure C passed in 2006, the vast majority of the road funding now will be focused on road maintenance and building new sidewalks or bike lanes as roads get upgraded.
The two options on the table
The “high priority” expenditure plan approved by the committee was one of two proposals on the table. The other was based on the results of a preliminary Sept. 18 vote. It would have put 57% of total tax revenues toward local roads, which includes fixing potholes — an allocation exponentially greater than any prior version of Measure C. Yet, the county’s transportation planners said it still fell short of what was needed for all county roads to reach “good condition”, or a score of 70 on the pavement condition index.
Transit faced a similar fate in this original option, which would’ve allocated 19.8% of tax revenue for transit to keep local buses running, but prevented any expansion of services as cities grow or want to increase bus frequencies — a necessary step to grow ridership.
Voters could be in a spot where, after approving over $7.3 billion in tax revenue over 30 years, the roads are in worse condition, and transit service stagnates.
The “high priority” plan, which the committee approved Thursday, would increase funding for both fixing roads and transit in a way that facilitates repairing road quality and transit expansion, too.
To do this, county transportation planners sacrificed dollars meant for freeways, expressways, and interchanges, in the ‘regional projects’ category, from 11% to 5%. This is the approach that evolved out of “significant stakeholder feedback,” according to COG staff.
They also combined funding to fix local roads with the “active transportation” category, designated for trails, bike lanes, and sidewalk projects —- a move that local representatives advocating for trails and bike lanes remained cautiously optimistic about.
Robert Phipps, executive director for the Fresno Council of Governments, stressed that combining money for roads and bike lanes into one category was designed to give local governments more flexibility in how they spend the funding they receive from the tax.
Facilitator Mark Keppler, a long-time trails advocate, emphasized that cities and the county would be held accountable for their performance — how well their roads improve, and how many miles of trails or bike lanes they build — instead of just being handed money.
But Musson, in her capacity representing the City of Fresno, opposed combining money for roads and bike lanes, fearing it would dilute the impact of road money to fix potholes, despite the COG staff advising that the new plan would help bring county roads to “good” condition.
Many rural city representatives expressed satisfaction with the alternative “high priority” plan, which gives them more money annually than they’ve ever seen to fix their roads. Every city in the county is guaranteed a minimum of $400,000 annually for their roads, a four-fold increase from the current version of Measure C.
The county, representing unincorporated areas, still had some reservations. Mohammad Alimi, a director with Fresno County’s Public Works Department, raised concerns over a new proposed formula on how to spend the road money, which favors population centers over places that have many roads to maintain but few people — like the county.
Phipps acknowledged that the details still need to be worked out to ensure that the county’s unincorporated communities are guaranteed money each year.
That’s just one of the many details yet to be hashed out in fine print before the plan can get the final green light for the November 2026 ballot.
The next few months will present quite the gauntlet for the county’s transportation policy staff to qualify the plan for the ballot.
If the plan gets approved by the Council of Governments’ policy board, comprised of all 15 mayors and a county representative, then it will head to each individual city council for approval, and ultimately the Fresno County Board of Supervisors before it could qualify for the ballot.
The Steering Committee plans to meet again on Nov. 13 to vote on implementing guidelines dictating how the money can be spent.
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