Petaluma City Council weighs sales tax measure

Petaluma officials are gearing up for another shot at convincing voters to approve a sales tax to fund repairs to the city’s beleaguered streets - and possibly more - on the November ballot.

Following months of unofficial discussion around the potential tax, Petaluma City Manager John Brown gave the City Council his take during a special workshop Monday on how far the money might go in funding a wave of repairs to the city’s roadways, as well as possible hiring for police and improvements to various city-owned facilities. Voters in 2014 shot down Measure Q, a general tax measure with similar intentions.

The discussion laid out the price tag to achieve various goals, and teed up the next step of figuring out what city residents would be willing to support at the ballot box.

“The needs are real. The needs are great. They are identified,” said Petaluma Mayor David Glass.

Officials said they were contemplating an approach that would incorporate the lessons learned from the failure of Measure Q and, more recently, last year’s countywide roads-focused tax initiative, Measure A. Each was positioned through the non-binding spending structure of a general tax, and despite favorable early polling, failed to attract the simple majority needed to pass.

While a special tax pegged to a specific list of purposes requires a larger two-thirds approval to pass, several on the council said they felt voters would be more likely to support a defined spending plan for the proposed measure. Measure Q was also proposed as a permanent increase, which later polling suggested was a turnoff for some voters.

“We need it to be a special tax, and we need it to have a fixed expiration date,” said Councilman Mike Healy, who first announced the push for a tax proposal in an Argus-Courier editorial co-authored by council members Kathy Miller and Gabe Kearney last summer.

Fellow council member Teresa Barrett echoed those points in no uncertain terms.

“If it’s not a special tax, I will not be supporting it no matter what,” she said. “The voters want a guarantee.”

Council members recalled that support shown in polling conducted before Measure Q was not reflected in the final results, and called for a meticulous approach going forward. Brown said he planned to return to the council with a suggested consultant on Feb. 22.

Polling will narrow down preferences for the rate and term of the tax, as well as desired expenditures, he said. The proposed tax is likely to range from a half-cent to a full cent for a term ranging from 10 to 30 years.

Brown noted that Measure Q’s proposed one-cent increase may have also dissuaded some voters, and said polling was likely to show a greater likelihood of support for a lesser increase. Petaluma currently has among the lowest sales tax rates in Sonoma County at 8.25 percent, with Cotati having the highest rate at 9.25 percent.

Brown laid out the cost of achieving various goals with the tax.

It would cost an estimated $128 million to bring Petaluma’s streets to an average pavement condition score of 82, which is considered “very good” by the measure of the regional Metropolitan Transportation Commission. Roads improved to that level would be easier and cheaper to maintain at a high quality, with Petaluma’s current $3 million road repair budget considered adequate to the task, Brown said.

Improving roads to a score of 70, the low end of “good” on the scale, would cost $76 million, according to information from the city. At that level, roads would be more expensive to maintain annually and would likely degrade at current levels of maintenance.

Either route would be a significant boost from a current city score of 44, which puts Petaluma firmly in the “poor” category with some of the worst road quality in the Bay Area.

It is likely that repairs could begin almost immediately, but the duration of the tax will depend in part on the rate at which Petalumans are willing to pitch in. At rates between a half-cent and a full cent, it would take between 11 and 21 years to fund the larger road overhaul, and between six and 12 years to fund the lower-end repair job.

A one-cent tax would produce around $12 million annually, with $9 million from a 75-cent tax and $6 million from a half-cent, according to the city.

In addition to projections for road repair, Brown said it would cost approximately $1.7 million annually to restore around 12 positions to the Petaluma Police Department, including eight sworn officers. The department’s ranks shrank significantly as the city tightened its belt during the recent financial crisis, down from 78 officers in 2008 to 65 allotted positions today.

Improvements to city facilities - three fire stations, the police station and the downtown museum - would cost an additional $33 million.

A tax meant to fund the full gamut of needs described in the recent hearing would need to generate between $126 million and $195 million, according to the report.

Several council members ?noted that the city’s roads ?have long been their own ambassador for repairs, which would make it a relatively easy case to make for voters. It could be a greater challenge to explain issues like the need to replace the city’s aging and seismically-prone fire department headquarters and improve other stations, though Councilman Chris Albertson noted that the need remains.

“They’re there today. They’ll probably be there tomorrow. But time is running out,” he said.

Councilman Dave King said he expected an effective poll would unambiguously show a strong desire for a roads-focused tax.

“We all have antennas in town, and we all know what people are asking us to do,” he said.

(Contact Eric Gneckow at eric.gneckow@arguscourier.com. ?On Twitter @Eric_Reports.)