![\"Sacramento](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/SAC_4819_PITCount_HA_260126.JPG\" "\\"Sacramento")
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Sacramento Mayor Kevin McCarty speaks before participating in the Sacramento County Point-in-Time homeless count on Monday, Jan. 26, 2026. McCarty stopped pursuing for the November ballot a higher real estate transfer tax for housing and homeless iniatives after a city-commissioned poll found tepid support.<\/p>\n
HECTOR AMEZCUA<\/p>\n
hamezcua@sacbee.com<\/p>\n
A city-paid public opinion survey has some new insights about who wields power when proposing most new taxes, and it\u2019s not Sacramento Mayor Kevin McCarty or the City Council.<\/p>\n
You are actually the one in charge.<\/p>\n
If the city were to propose new taxes to fund road repairs or transit<\/a>, or to expand homeless and housing initiatives, or renovations for parks, the measures would likely fail.<\/p>\n But if citizens advanced the same proposals through initiatives and signature-gathering, the taxes would have a shot.<\/p>\n Elected officials have long been the ones in the city and the county to advance revenue enhancements, but based on a new quirk in the law and a 2020 court ruling<\/a>, that era may be coming to an end.<\/p>\n It takes two-thirds of voters to approve these taxes if the council placed them on a ballot. It only takes a majority if Sacramento citizens qualify an initiative for voter approval.<\/p>\n These taxes \u201ccould be viable, but clearly not if the City Council put them on the ballot,\u201d said McCarty. \u201cThere\u2019s a \u2026trust issue in these tax measures.\u201d<\/p>\n Earlier this year, the city hired one of the heavyweights in California public research FM3, to conduct the public opinion survey. To date the city has only released a PowerPoint of the study to The Bee, along with some details about the survey.<\/p>\n Sacramento residents, mirroring the nation, are grouchy. Of those surveyed, 45% say the city is heading in the wrong direction and only 29% feel things are on the right track. Most (65%) see a need for more funds to help the city. But when it gets to the specifics on how to raise the funds, things begin to fall apart.<\/p>\n McCarty, for example, has been working behind the scenes for months with various stakeholders to advance an increase in the real estate transfer tax. The money would expand shelters for the homeless and a pot of money for first time homebuyers.<\/p>\n Only 49% of those surveyed were supportive of the tax once they heard that the money, from a general tax, could be spent on anything. The finding was enough for the mayor to officially retreat<\/a> from the effort for the coming November election.<\/p>\n Transit activists, meanwhile, continue to circulate an initiative that would raise Sacramento\u2019s sales tax by a half-cent to fund road repairs, bicycle and pedestrian-friendly improvements and transit. Yet this proposal only has 50% approval, according to the survey, after voters heard arguments for and against the idea. This isn\u2019t the kind of early support that transportation proponents were hoping to see.<\/p>\n \u201cObviously we have our work cut out for us,\u201d said Steve Cohn, the long-time former city councilmember who is one of the key supporters of this sales tax proposal.<\/p>\n It\u2019s ironic that the most popular new revenue idea, a parcel tax to help run city parks, is the only one that had no political machine behind it for the November ballot. Of those surveyed, 55% supported this tax, and only 36% opposed.<\/p>\n
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