County tax measure on June ballot could mean $10 million for Petaluma

Sonoma County Supervisor David Rabbit has confirmed that the board is working with city of Petaluma and other local interests to place a new sales tax measure on this June’s ballot. The measure would raise the county’s sales tax by a quarter-cent for a period of five years. Rabbit said that if passed by a simple majority of voters, the measure could bring as much as $10 million to the city’s coffers over the five-year period. Rabbit said all parties were in agreement that the funds would be used for county road improvements.

“The money would go for fixing the roads,” said Rabbit. “Every city in this county is struggling. We’ve brought a coalition to the table that we think can make this work. There is no opposition to it so far.”

Called the “Sonoma County 2015 Transactions and Use Tax Ordinance” the proposal, formulated by the county, would allocate more than half of the funds go directly to cities, while the rest would go to county road improvements. Rabbit said 20 percent of the money would go to transit infrastructure, divided evenly between the city of Santa Rosa and the county.

“For Petaluma, that would mean roughly $1.9 million per year, or just under $10 million during the five years it was in place,” said Rabbit, who served on the Petaluma city council.

Council members and city officials were cautiously optimistic about both the measures chances for success at the polls, as well as how much it would help the city.

“It’s helpful but not enough to do what the city needs to do,” said Petaluma Vice-Mayor Kathy Miller. Miller serves on the Sonoma County Transportation Agency.

In the aftermath of Measure Q’s defeat, Miller said the city and county was trying to determine how to raise revenues. She said the answer might be incremental approaches, such as the county’s 2004 Measure M, which voters passed and raised the sales tax a quarter-cent. Measure M laid out specific financial percentages for spending on transit issues.

Miller said there should be a recalculation of the formula for distributing potential future funds.

“I’d like to see Petaluma get a bigger share of funding,” said Miller. “We have a lot of roads in need of repair and a lot of the county’s roads don’t have traffic problems like we do. Not all roads are equal,” said Miller.

Dan St. John - Petaluma’s director of public works - said he would be happy with any revenues that could help alleviate Petaluma’s road repair needs.

“This would be a small fraction of what we need, but we’ll take it” said St. John, who estimated that Petaluma’s current road repairs required $8 to $10 million in revenue. “The city has great needs.”