Transportation Agency lobbies for state loophole to fix streets.

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.