{"id":411277,"date":"2026-07-24T22:03:08","date_gmt":"2026-07-24T22:03:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/411277\/"},"modified":"2026-07-24T22:03:08","modified_gmt":"2026-07-24T22:03:08","slug":"mountain-view-ditched-bond-plans-after-lack-of-support-records-show","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/411277\/","title":{"rendered":"Mountain View ditched bond plans after lack of support, records show"},"content":{"rendered":"

Mountain View\u2019s decision to scrap<\/a> plans to place a bond measure on the November ballot came after polls showed plummeting support for the potential revenue measure, according to public records obtained by the Mountain View Voice.<\/p>\n

The city hired polling firm EMC Research and political strategist Clifford Moss to gauge whether voters would back a $480 million to $650 million bond measure to fund public improvement projects<\/a>. The bonds would have been paid back by levying a tax on properties in the city.<\/p>\n

To pass at the ballot box, the general obligation bond measure would have needed two-thirds approval from voters. However, the polling results never showed support reaching that level, according to surveys conducted in three separate rounds over a period of five months.<\/p>\n

In January, 61% of poll respondents initially said they would back a bond measure. By May, support sat at 52%, roughly 15 percentage points below the required threshold.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn the current environment, a bond measure requiring two-thirds supermajority support does not appear feasible,\u201d the consultants wrote in a June report.<\/p>\n

Shortly afterward, the city pivoted from the bond measure to a hotel tax<\/a>. The City Council unanimously voted last month to place a transient occupancy tax increase on the November ballot. The measure only requires a simple majority to pass.<\/p>\n

Softening support for a bond measure<\/p>\n

In January, March and May, EMC Research and Clifford Moss conducted multilingual telephone, email and web surveys to reach likely voters, ultimately collecting a total of roughly 1,600 completed interviews across the three polls.<\/p>\n

In January, 61% of those polled said they \u201cdefinitely,\u201d \u201cprobably\u201d or would \u201clean\u201d toward supporting a $650 million bond measure to fund infrastructure improvements like updating emergency response services, repairing streets and sidewalks and providing more affordable housing and parks. The poll had a margin of error of roughly four percentage points.<\/p>\n

In March, 54% of polled voters registered support for a $650 million bond measure. The figure slightly increased \u2014 up to 56% \u2014 when the city proposed a $480 million bond measure. In a presentation to a subcommittee of councilmembers, EMC Research and Clifford Moss noted that the March survey was conducted after the start of the U.S. and Israel\u2019s war with Iran and subsequent increases in gas prices<\/a>.<\/p>\n

In May, the figure dipped even lower with 52% of respondents backing a $495 million bond measure. That figure fell to 42% after respondents were exposed to opposition arguments. The margin of error was roughly five percentage points.<\/p>\n

The results led EMC Research and Clifford Moss to conclude that a bond measure was not currently feasible. In a June report to the council subcommittee, the consultants also noted that while a majority of respondents were \u201cstill optimistic about the direction of Mountain View, pessimism has inched upward since the start of the year.\u201d<\/p>\n

In January, 75% of those polled said Mountain View was \u201cgoing in the right direction,\u201d while 23% felt the city was on the \u201cwrong track.\u201d In May, the figures changed to 69% and 26% respectively, according to the survey results.<\/p>\n

A hotel tax<\/p>\n

While the city decided to move forward with a measure to raise the hotel tax, that isn\u2019t something EMC Research and Clifford Moss conducted polling on this year. Instead, research was conducted back in 2024, during the previous election cycle.<\/p>\n

At the time, 53% of those polled supported an increase to the city\u2019s hotel tax rate. The figure jumped to 61% after respondents received positive information about the initiative, but fell to 49% after respondents received counter arguments, according to the consultant\u2019s report.<\/p>\n

Ultimately, Mountain View did not place a hotel tax on the ballot in 2024, instead opting to raise the city\u2019s property transfer tax<\/a>, which voters overwhelmingly approved<\/a>. Now, the city is going back to the hotel tax with the hope that a simple majority will pass the initiative this November.<\/p>\n

The city\u2019s transient occupancy tax, which currently sits at 10%, is assessed based on per-room occupancies in local hotels and motels. The ballot measure would authorize the city to raise it to as high as 15%.<\/p>\n

Currently, Mountain View has one of the lowest hotel tax rates in the region<\/a>, according to a June city report<\/a>. The last time voters increased the city\u2019s hotel tax was in 1991, when they raised it from 8% to 10%. Bringing it up to 15% could add approximately $5.4 million annually to the city\u2019s coffers.<\/p>\n

The ballot language presented in the June staff report specifies that the money would go toward repairing city streets and sidewalks, improving police, fire and emergency response services, supporting affordable housing, adding new parks and \u201cother general government services.\u201d<\/p>\n

This story originally appeared in the Mountain View Voice<\/a>. Emily Margaretten joined the Mountain View Voice in 2023 as a reporter covering City Hall.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Mountain View\u2019s decision to scrap plans to place a bond measure on the November ballot came after polls…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":201228,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[712,35072,88,90,89],"class_list":["post-411277","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-jose","tag-centerpiece","tag-election-2026","tag-san-jose","tag-san-jose-headlines","tag-san-jose-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/411277","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=411277"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/411277\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/201228"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=411277"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=411277"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=411277"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}