Transportation Agency for Monterey County launches effort to get sales tax on 2016 ballot.

Monterey County’s roads are crumbling. That’s according to the numbers: On a pavement condition scale of 0 to 100, an average system of reasonably safe roadways would be expected to measure around 70. Monterey County’s is more like 50.

“The bottom line is, our infrastructure is aging,” says Theresa Wright, community outreach coordinator for the Transportation Agency for Monterey County. “We have a system that’s aging, and it’s underfunded.”

To prove it, she shows slides of cracking roads in every part of the county, from downtowns to rural areas.

Transportation projects are notoriously pricey. The Prunedale Improvement Project, for example, is slowly transforming a dangerous portion of Highway 101 into a modern highway for about $209 million.

Federal funding used to be reliable, but has become a charged subject of congressional debate. In an effort to fund basic maintenance and potentially more innovative transportation efforts like light rail and bike lanes, TAMC officials are considering whether to ask voters to approve a sales tax in 2016.

Last time TAMC went to voters with a similar sales tax, in 2008, a majority voted for it – but not the required two-thirds threshold.

This time, TAMC might ask for a countywide sales tax hike of three-eighths of one cent, generating some $20 million a year. That would bring local sales taxes in Salinas and Del Rey Oaks to the maximum 2-percent limit, meaning it would be the end of countywide sales tax measures for the foreseeable future. (A 30-year sunset period is currently on the table.)

On April 22, TAMC’s board approved a $135,000 contract with political strategy firm Clifford Moss to do public outreach and polling on the tax. TAMC also appointed a steering committee to gather input on how to spend the money.

For TAMC chairperson and Salinas City Councilwoman Kimbley Craig, it’s essential to sort out how the money would be split up between city and regional projects.

“Salinas would be contributing about $7 million of that [$20 million in] revenue per year,” she says. “So does that mean the city will be getting $7 million worth of repairs, or are we going to be subsidizing other areas of the county?”

TAMC steering committee member Jerry Edelen, the mayor of Del Rey Oaks, is generally staunchly anti-tax. He’s volunteered to reach out to conservative groups like the Monterey Peninsula Taxpayers Association.

“I’m going around and trying to convince folks, hold your nose and vote for the tax,” Edelen says.

That’s because by passing a sales tax, Monterey County would join 20 other California counties as “self-help counties,” meaning TAMC would be eligible for state and federal grants available only when voters agree to put some skin in the game.

Edelen doesn’t think that’s fair – it looks to him like state tax dollars are being held hostage. But after 16 years on the TAMC board, and opposing two previous tax measures, he’s come around to a local tax hike.

Two years ago, he started traveling to Sacramento to lobby the California Transportation Commission (CTC) for funding, and realized it was hopeless.

“It wasn’t until I attended CTC meetings and found out what other counties were doing, and saw how we were hurting ourselves,” he says, “that I realized I was wrong.”