Now the city of Fresno is rushing its own sales tax onto the November ballot, which will help the city\u2019s residents if it passes but do nothing for anyone who lives outside the city limits.<\/p>\n
A County Board Says No, a City Says, \u201cFine, We\u2019ll Do It Ourselves\u201d<\/p>\n With the clock ticking on Measure C a broad coalition of community and social justice groups, organized as Moving Forward Together and backed by former Fresno Mayor Ashley Swearengin, spent the last several months gathering signatures for a citizen initiative called Better Roads, Safe Streets<\/a>.<\/p>\n That effort hit a wall on July 14, when a 3-2 majority of the Fresno County Board of Supervisors voted to order a 30-day staff study of the measure\u2019s impacts rather than simply placing it on the November ballot. Board Chair Garry Bredefeld, along with Supervisors Buddy Mendes and Nathan Magsig, made up the majority. Magsig spent more than an hour questioning the measure\u2019s drafters before concluding it was too \u201cprescriptive\u201d in how it dictated spending. Board Vice Chair Luis Chavez and Supervisor Brian Pacheco voted against the study, favoring a direct vote to put the measure on the ballot.<\/p>\n The vote followed partisan lines with the board\u2019s three Republican members preferring a study and letting a transportation sales tax expire versus two Democrats who wanted to let voters have the final say.<\/p>\n The practical effect of the delay is almost certainly to kill the measure\u2019s chances this year. The county has an Aug. 7 deadline to qualify something for the November ballot, and staff told the board the 30-day study would likely take the entire allotted time\u2014leaving no room to also call the special meeting that would be needed to place the item on the ballot before the deadline. Absent that narrow path, Better Roads, Safe Streets won\u2019t reach voters until the March 2028 primary at the earliest.<\/p>\n Fresno Mayor Jerry Dyer, a Republican, didn\u2019t hide his frustration, telling reporters immediately after the meeting that he believed voters should have been allowed to decide the measure themselves.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cI think this is voter suppression, quite frankly,\u201d Dyer told Fresno\u2019s ABC affiliate<\/a>.<\/p>\n Mendota Mayor Victor Martinez, a Republican, accused the board of stalling the measure because members \u201creally just don\u2019t like us.\u201d<\/p>\n Nine days later, Fresno city leaders held their own news conference. Unable to wait on the county, Dyer, City Council President Nelson Esparza, and Councilmember Mike Karbassi introduced a general sales tax measure of their own<\/a>, the Fresno Public Safety Infrastructure Restoration and Essential Services Act. This act would have Fresno City residents pay the same amount of taxes they do now after Measure C expires. This time, the funds will go directly to the city.\u00a0<\/p>\n Esparza said the supervisors\u2019 decision put \u201cmillions of dollars in road funding\u201d at risk and put the city in a position where it had only a matter of days to draft an alternative.<\/p>\n \u201cI would rather not be standing here,\u201d Esparza said at the Thursday news conference, according to Fresnoland<\/a>. \u201cMeasure C has served this county well over the decades, and I would rather have had a continuation of that, but that\u2019s not where we find ourselves.\u201d<\/p>\n Critically, the city\u2019s proposal only applies inside Fresno city limits. It does nothing for Clovis, Mendota, or any of the county\u2019s unincorporated communities and rural areas\u2014all of which currently rely on Measure C dollars.\u00a0<\/p>\n Clovis stands to lose an estimated $6.34 million a year without a replacement, according to city spokesperson Taylor Danielson, and the Fresno County Rural Transit Authority is projected to lose about $4 million annually, per general manager Janelle Del Campo. Neither agency has announced service or staffing cuts yet, but both say they\u2019re studying the fallout after the Supervisors failed them.<\/p>\n Two Very Different Taxes<\/p>\n Strip away the politics, and the two proposals, Better Roads, Safe Streets and the city\u2019s new stopgap tax, look almost identical on paper: both are half-cent sales taxes, both are meant to replace Measure C revenue, and both would be paid by anyone spending money in the taxed jurisdiction. But how the money would be spent, who benefits, and how the tax is legally structured are entirely different.<\/p>\n Better Roads, Safe Streets, the citizen-led countywide initiative, would have applied a half-cent sales tax across all of Fresno County and dedicate every dollar to transportation. Under its spending formula:<\/p>\n 65% would go to existing neighborhood streets and roads\u2014pavement, potholes, safety fixes, sidewalks, and local infrastructure<\/p>\n 25% would fund public transportation, including bus operations and transit service countywide.<\/p>\n 5% would go toward regional connectivity\u2014major roadways, arterials, and interchanges<\/p>\n 4% would support \u201ctransportation innovation,\u201d including EV infrastructure and discounted fares for seniors, veterans, and people with disabilities.<\/p>\n 1% would fund administration, oversight, audits and planning<\/p>\n Because it\u2019s a citizen initiative rather than a government-placed measure, it only needed a simple majority to pass, rather than the two-thirds threshold that has doomed prior county-sponsored Measure C renewals. (The 2022 attempt to extend Measure C, which needed a two-thirds vote, got \u201cjust\u201d 58% support.)<\/p>\n The city of Fresno\u2019s tax is structured as a general tax; the city has full discretion on how to spend that money. Politically, it would be difficult for Dyer and current leadership to spend that money on anything besides transportation, but they won\u2019t be running the city forever and new leadership can do as they please. There\u2019s no guarantee any of it goes to transit, and no requirement that a fixed share go toward bike lanes, sidewalks, or other active transportation projects the city\u2019s own draft Active Transportation Plan calls for. City leaders have floated an annual independent audit and a possible oversight committee but committed none of the revenue to a specific purpose.<\/p>\n Esparza acknowledged the general-tax route was chosen mostly out of necessity. \u201cThis general tax is really the only pathway we could see here in the short term,\u201d he told reporters, as quoted by KMPH<\/a>, given the narrow window between the county\u2019s vote and the city council\u2019s final meeting before the ballot deadline.<\/p>\n Because it\u2019s a general tax, the city\u2019s measure needs only a simple majority to pass, but for a much narrower and less transportation-specific purpose. If approved, it would take effect July 1, 2027, the day after Measure C expires, and would sunset after 10 years or as soon as a countywide transportation tax takes its place, whichever comes first.<\/p>\n What Happens Next, and What\u2019s Riding on It<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/Screenshot-2026-07-28-at-3.50.09-PM.png\")
<\/a>An actual image of Fresno County Board Chair Garry Bredefeld. Image via Your Central Valley.<\/p>\n