Most people agree Monterey County’s roads could be in better shape. They disagree on how to pay for upgrades.
The Transportation Agency for Monterey County has been at work on a ballot measure for November 2016, preparing to ask voters to approve a sales tax increase of three-eighths of one cent to generate some $20 million per year.
They settled on three-eighths because of a 2-percent state limit on local sales taxes, and that would bring some cities, including Salinas and Del Rey Oaks, to the max.
One problem: Greenfield officials are preparing to ask voters to extend an existing sales tax. That would leave TAMC one-eighth of a cent, slashing their anticipated tax revenue to about $6 million a year.
TAMC’s solution is lobbying state lawmakers to lift the cap.
Gov. Jerry Brown vetoed a similar statewide bill earlier this session, leaving TAMC scrambling. SB 705 was first introduced in February by State Sen. Jerry Hill, D-San Mateo, as a funding vehicle for charter schools. Earlier this month, the bill, which wasn’t going anywhere, was dramatically rewritten: The new version would allow TAMC to impose transportation taxes that exceed California’s 2-cent threshold. Assemblyman Mark Stone, D-Scotts Valley, co-authored.
TAMC hired lobbyist Gus Khouri for $10,000 to advocate on their behalf. Khouri’s task: to get word from Gov. Jerry Brown’s staff that he would sign SB 705.
“He got the assurance,” TAMC Executive Director Debbie Hale says. Then she adds an asterisk: “The governor is a maverick.”
The state Assembly and Senate passed the bill, which now awaits Brown’s signature or veto.
Every city (and the county) within TAMC’s jurisdiction has agreed to send a letter of support urging Brown to sign the bill. “That’s a pretty strong coalition of support, considering we did this in the last three weeks of the session,” Hale says.