Petaluma sales tax increase discussed

City leaders are proposing a sales tax measure for the November 2016 ballot that would fund street repairs and the Rainier crosstown connector.|

City leaders are already discussing a sales tax measure for the November 2016 ballot, saying that Petaluma needs a new revenue stream to pay for road repairs, a crosstown connector and other priorities.

City Councilman Mike Healy, who is backing the effort, said the polling indicates support for a three-quarter-cent sales tax increase with a specific spending plan and a 20-year limit. He announced the plan in an op-ed, also signed by council members Gabe Kearney and Kathy Miller, in last week’s Argus-Courier.

“You could really improve a majority of the streets in our town with that kind of funding source,” Healy said. “We’ve put pencil to paper to see what something might look like.”

The sales tax could generate $20 million for the long-delayed Rainier crosstown connector project, and an additional $80 million to repair the city’s streets, which are ranked among the poorest in the Bay Area. Healy said the city could also use the funding to address other needs like repairing fire stations and replacing police vehicles.

“We’ll see what this looks like as it gets closer,” he said.

The City Council would need to approve the measure by next summer to qualify for the November 2016 ballot, but leaders are allowing plenty of time for discussion. Healy said he has only talked about the plan with Kearney and Miller to avoid violating public meeting rules that prohibit a majority of elected officials from discussing public business outside of open meetings. The next step would be to discuss it at a council meeting, Healy said.

The proposal comes less than a year after the city failed to pass Measure Q, a sales tax initiative on the November 2014 ballot. That measure had no end date, was a full cent-increase and had no dedicated spending plan, meaning that it needed a simple majority to pass. It received 43 percent of the vote.

Measure Q became a campaign issue in the mayor’s race with Mayor David Glass opposing it during his successful reelection campaign over then-City Councilman Mike Harris, who supported it.

Glass said he could support a sales tax measure if it was dedicated only to street repairs and building the crosstown connector. A specific tax measure requires two-thirds voter approval to pass.

“If we’re going to achieve new revenue from sales tax, it needs to be dedicated to the demands of the taxpayers,” Glass said. “The measure needs to be limited to the crosstown connector, traffic relief and street repairs, period. That is what the polling told us.”

The measure could again become a campaign issue as the three council members who have voiced early support for the measure - Healy, Miller and Kearney - would be up for reelection in 2016, if they chose to run. Healy and Miller said they had not yet decided on running.

Miller said she learned from the campaign for Measure Q and Measure A, a failed attempt in June to pass a countywide general sales tax for road repair.

“If we decide to put a measure on the ballot, we’ll explore whether it’s likely to pass,” she said.

“It’s apparent from Measure Q and Measure A that people don’t want a general tax. We’ll have to do more polling. Right now, it’s really very preliminary.”

Kearney said that he will run for reelection. He said that, without a new funding source, the city will not be able to fix the crumbling streets.

“You look around and see how bad ?roads are. We have to do something to fix it,” he said. “Without a dedicated funding stream, we can’t keep up with the infrastructure improvements that we have. Clearly, the current funding system isn’t working.”

(Contact Matt Brown at matt.brown@arguscourier.com. On Twitter @MattBrownAC.)

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