Supervisors dump November road tax
Dateline:
08/06/2008Acknowledging low odds of success at the polls, the Napa County Board of Supervisors on Tuesday ditched a proposal to place a half-cent sales tax increase on the November ballot to pay for local road repairs.
Board members and Napa County Transportation and Planning Agency Executive Director Jim Leddy cited factors ranging from the high price of gas and the crowded November ballot to Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s most recent proposed budget fix — a statewide 1 percent sales tax hike — in jettisoning the ballot measure.
“I recommend that we not call the election at this time,” said Leddy.
“It’s no secret that Napa County roads are among the worst in the Bay Area,” he said, adding that “they are just going to get worse over time.”
But he said the perceived advantage of seeking the road tax during what is anticipated to be a high-turnout election was being “swamped” by higher-profile ballot issues.
He said the governor’s new sales tax hike proposal, the latest in a series of possible solutions to the budget stalemate in Sacramento, was “the nail in the coffin.”
Supervisor Bill Dodd, who also serves as chair of the regional Metropolitan Transportation Commission, acknowledged that withdrawing the road measure “is something we’ve been looking at closely for about four weeks.”
Dodd reeled off adverse factors: a lengthy ballot, starting with the presidential and congressional races and including a dozen or more state initiatives; city council and supervisor races up and down the valley; and the high price of gas.
“We just didn’t want to put this burden on voters at this time,” Dodd said.
“We all recognize this was going to be a tough sell,” said Supervisor Brad Wagenknecht.
Rough roads ahead
The road tax measure, which received the endorsement of every city council in the county in recent weeks, would have been the second bid at a so-called self-help tax in Napa County.
Measure H on the June 2006 ballot also would have raised the local sales tax by half a cent to pay for road repairs and projects. It received support from 52 percent of the voters, well shy of the two-thirds support needed.
Leddy and Dodd have said Napa County must approve a specialized source of funds for roadwork to successfully draw state and federal matching dollars. NCTPA projections showed that this year’s proposed 30-year tax would have raised more than $460 million locally and drawn an additional $600 million in state and federal monies.
The NCTPA had outlined several projects to be paid for with the tax, which more heavily emphasized road repair than did Measure H. These included $194 million worth of road repairs in Napa County, $189 million in the city of Napa, smaller but substantial pots of funds for repairs in other cities, the construction of three Upvalley traffic roundabouts, safety improvements to Silverado Trail, the widening of Napa’s First Street bridge over Highway 29 to four lanes, construction of a Soscol flyover at the Southern Crossing, improvements to the intersection of Airport Road and Highway 29 and extension of Devlin Road south of the Napa County Airport.
A recent MTC study shows roads are subpar throughout Napa County, with every city except American Canyon — where congestion is a bigger problem than poor road conditions — getting a failing grade.
Source:
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