Will Fresno County voters see any transportation taxes on the November ballot?

The front-running group in the scramble to replace Fresno County’s 40-year transportation sales tax doesn’t have the numbers they need yet to qualify for the November ballot.

But backers insist the fight isn’t over. 

The “Better Roads, Safe Streets” campaign learned this week that they didn’t meet the needed benchmark to qualify for the ballot in a “random sample” test by the Fresno County Clerk’s Office.

Instead, the Fresno County Clerk’s Office is conducting a full count of their submitted signatures. Of the roughly 32,500 they filed in April, the clerk must validate just shy of 22,000 of them.

To make it onto the November ballot, the clerk only has until early July to complete this task — something that’s “absolutely” possible, Fresno County Clerk James Kus told reporters on Wednesday, but not a guarantee.

“That is definitely doable,” he said. “But I cannot promise that we will make that.”

Better Roads, Safe Streets campaign manager Andy Levine told reporters in a separate briefing on Wednesday outside the County Clerk’s Office in downtown Fresno that the campaign is as confident as ever that the plan will make it onto the November ballot and seek voters’ approval for their proposed replacement of Measure C.

“We have full confidence in the Registrar of Voters in the county to do this with efficiency, responsibility and to make sure that we absolutely respect the will of thousands of voters,” Levine said, “who have said loud and clear: We want this on the ballot.”

The deadline for local measures to qualify for the November ballot isn’t until Aug. 7, and, legally, the clerk has a few weeks past that — Aug. 21 — to process the full count. 

But before they can be placed on the ballot, qualified local measures must go before the Fresno County Board of Supervisors for a ministerial vote — and there are only four meetings on the board’s schedule before the Aug. 7 deadline, the latest one being July 14.

The clerk’s office is now racing against the clock to validate at least 21,909 signatures before then — and contending with other priorities, including the upcoming June 2 primary election.

What happened with the random sample?

Kus explained to reporters outside his office on Wednesday that the random sample of about 3% of the Better Roads, Safe Streets campaign’s signatures, or about 977 of them, turned up about 77% valid signatures — higher than the 68 to 72% among other random samples his office has recorded across four other statewide petitions recently examined by the clerk’s office.

But because there were two duplicates among the rejected signatures within the Better Roads, Safe Streets random sample, they were penalized in the formula used to determine whether a random sample is sufficient to automatically qualify a measure for the ballot without requiring a full count.

Duplicate signatures aren’t uncommon, Kus added, but something they’ve seen both historically and with other statewide petitions in the current election cycle. 

“With a lot of petitions out there,” he said, “it’s actually fairly easy for someone to forget that they have signed this petition before.”

Will there be a rival tax measure?

Around this time last year, Fresno County voters faced the possibility of having to choose between three different transportation tax measures.

Now, only one appears to be within striking distance of the November ballot.

Just over a month after Better Roads, Safe Streets launched their signature-gathering campaign in January, a rival group of transportation and political consultants unveiled their own measure called “Fix Our Roads” that garnered support from some of the biggest critics of Better Roads, Safe Streets.

On Wednesday, Kus said he has yet to receive an update from the Fix Our Roads camp.

Henry R. Perea, a former Fresno County supervisor and Fresno city councilmember who’s backing the Fix Our Roads campaign, told Fresnoland on Tuesday that they’re still gathering signatures but didn’t say when they plan to submit them to the clerk.

Perea added that the Fix Our Roads campaign believed that Fresno County mayors involved in the Fresno Council of Governments regional transportation planning body are “discussing re-engaging and taking the two measures and crafting a compromise that can be placed on the November ballot.”

Four members of the COG policy board told Fresnoland this week they were unaware of any such talks, including Fresno Mayor Jerry Dyer.

“I am not aware of any Mayors having conversations about re-engaging the COG on this matter,” he said in a statement Wednesday, “other than possibly the four Mayors who oppose the Better Roads – Safe Streets Initiative. 

“The Mayors who have supported the initiative, including myself,” he added, “are willing to wait for the final vote. I am confident a sufficient number of valid signatures will be counted and the measure will be placed on the November ballot.”

Supervisor Garry Bredefeld, Fresno County’s representative on the COG policy board, said he wasn’t aware of these talks among COG members either.

Bredefeld, a staunch opponent of the Better Roads, Safe Streets proposal, has criticized the plan, arguing that it underspends on local roads and regional transportation projects while overspending on public transit.

In January, he asked county staff to conduct a legal and fiscal analysis of placing a countywide general sales tax on the ballot — a tax he floated as an alternative to Better Roads, Safe Streets, which he said could be used for “actually repairing and fixing roads, other capital projects, safety” and other needs.

On Wednesday, however, Bredefeld told Fresnoland he would have “tremendous difficulty supporting” a general tax.

“I think we are way over-taxed as it is,” he said. “It was information I wanted to take a look at, but it’s not something that I would support.”

Bredefeld also said he has doubts whether voters will see any transportation tax plan on the ballot this November.

“It’s very unfortunate because if the mayors that supported this scam had simply listened to those of us on the COG board who wanted to develop a real plan that was going to fix people’s streets and roads,” he said, “we could have had something that we could have presented in a united way to the public.”

What’s next for Better Roads, Safe Streets?

Kus’ office had 30 business days to complete the random sample of just under 1,000 signatures. 

Now, it has an additional 60 days to conduct a full count and validate at least roughly 22,000 out of 32,500 submitted.

There were some labor-intensive tasks upfront during the random sample that will no longer pose a burden as they proceed to the full count, Kus told Fresnoland in an interview Tuesday, such as determining the raw number of signatures and sorting them for selection in the random sample.

But the office is also dealing with competing priorities as they face a tighter deadline — June 25 — to do their part in determining whether statewide measures will qualify for the November ballot and validating Fresno County voters’ signatures.

They’re also ramping up election activities in preparation for the June 2 primary. His staff that were primarily assigned to work on petitions will largely have to shift focus toward handling same-day registration ballots.

“It’s a bit of a balancing act,” he said.

Kus pointed to some other variables that could affect how long it will take his staff to get back to prioritizing petitions, including turnout for the June election. 

“I do not know what turnout is going to be like this election,” he said. “If it’s on the quieter side, then we may be able to get back to our petitions even sooner than I expect. 

“I hope our participation picks up,” he added, “and we have great, great election and participation levels.”

Kus added that despite the need for the full count, he anticipates Better Roads, Safe Streets has a good chance of ultimately qualifying — and the question is if it will happen in time for November.

“This has not failed,” he said. “This measure, this petition, is still going on. Yes, it’s going to a full count, but it definitely hasn’t failed. 

“I think it’s actually very well-positioned to make it to the ballot,” he continued. “I just don’t know when, exactly.”