in his ruling<\/a> that AB 1923 is valid and enforceable, and rejected all avenues for legal relief that the county was looking for in their case against the State of California.\u00a0<\/p>\nShortly after Monday\u2019s ruling was announced, Board Chair Garry Bredefeld issued a statement slamming Measure S while also saying the board respects the judge\u2019s ruling. In a surprise move, Bredefeld said the county would not appeal the decision.<\/p>\n
\u201cI respect Judge Skiles, believe he gave all sides a fair opportunity to present their arguments, and accept his decision,\u201d the statement reads.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Board of Supervisors followed California election law when it exercised its statutory authority to study Measure S, and we believed the Legislature\u2019s last-minute attempt to change the rules and create a brand new law targeting Fresno County raised serious constitutional questions,\u201d he continued. \u201cWe made our case.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cIf the radicals promoting this scam had correctly collected their signatures and not required the Clerk to hand count their signatures, this delay would never have happened. Nevertheless, the Court has ruled, we accept that ruling, and we will not appeal this decision.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
It is not immediately known what kind of resources the supervisors will put toward their likely efforts to campaign against Measure S ahead of November.<\/p>\n
The county\u2019s lawsuit against the state saw the board of supervisors also take on a handful of local leaders in an effort to place Measure S on the 2028 ballot \u2014 including Fresno Mayor Jerry Dyer and local elections clerk James Kus, a county employee.<\/p>\n
Kus did not immediately respond to requests for comment for this story.<\/p>\n
It is not immediately clear exactly how much money the lawsuit cost the county. Fresno County Spokesperson Sonja Dosti said the county won\u2019t know \u201cfor a couple of weeks\u201d what the final cost was, but said that its current estimated price was at about $55,000.<\/p>\n
Because it is a signature-led initiative, Measure S will only need a simple majority, or 50% + 1 of the vote to be approved.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Measure C\u2019s recent route to renewalwhich in 2022 required a two-thirds majority vote. However, likely opposition from the majority of the county\u2019s board of supervisors, and other local transportation leaders and elected officials keep an approval far from guaranteed.<\/p>\n
The \u201cYes on Measure S campaign,\u201d issued a statement on Monday celebrating their victory in court.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cThe court saw what was plain all along: Measure S qualified fair and square,\u201d the campaign said in their statement \u201cand it should be voters \u2014 not politicians \u2014 who have the final say on how their tax dollars are spent.\u201d<\/p>\n
Monday\u2019s ruling culminated a months-long saga that saw the Better Roads coalition \u2014 made up of community advocates and a bipartisan majority of Fresno County\u2019s mayors \u2014 attempt to find a successor to Measure C. The 40-year-old transportation tax will expire next summer.\u00a0<\/p>\n
With no countywide tax plan to replace Measure C, local governments and transportation agencies already began picturing a grim fiscal future, with layoffs and service reductions on the table.\u00a0<\/p>\n
With Measure S momentarily stuck in a legal battle, the City of Fresno swiftly introduced and approved a citywide general tax that local leaders said would help protect them from a projected shortfall of millions of dollars, and avoid laying off more than 200 city workers.\u00a0<\/p>\n
That plan was announced at a time when it was not clear what Measure S\u2019 fate would be pending this court case. However, it is now too late to pull the measure from appearing on the November ballot.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The citywide measure has language in it that automatically voids it if a countywide tax plan is in place. Last month, Dyer, who is also a prominent proponent of Measure S, said he\u2019d encourage local voters to approve both tax plans.<\/p>\n
Dyer cheered Monday’s ruling in a statement acknowledging that both measures would appear on November ballot.<\/p>\n
“The City of Fresno’s general sales tax measure, Measure D, was also placed on the ballot as a backup while the future of Measure S remained uncertain,” Dyer said. “At this stage, it is too late for the City to remove Measure because the legal deadline has passed.”<\/p>\n
“As a result, Fresno voters will see both measures on the November ballot. If both are approved, Measure S will take priority, Measure D will not go into effect,” Dyer continued. “This safeguard was included to ensure residents do not experience an increase in local sales tax.”<\/p>\n
The county\u2019s lawsuit, specifically, came following the passing of AB 1923, a law introduced by California Assemblymember Esmerlada Soria and co-authored by State Sen. Anna Caballero.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cJudge Skiles\u2019 ruling reinforces what we already knew, that AB 1923 is law, and that voters in Fresno County will NOT be denied their constitutional right to decide on this transportation measure,” Soria’s office said through a statement shared Monday morning.<\/p>\n
That statement concludes by saying, \u201cIt\u2019s time to move on. Fresno County has plenty of other issues it needs to focus on.\u201d<\/p>\n
This <a target=”_blank” href=”https:\/\/fresnoland.org\/2026\/08\/31\/judge-sides-against-fresno-county-transportation-measure-lawsuit-measure-s-will-be-on-the-november-ballot-for-now\/”>article<\/a> first appeared on <a target=”_blank” href=”https:\/\/fresnoland.org”>Fresnoland<\/a> and is republished here under a <a target=”_blank” href=”https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by-nd\/4.0\/”>Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License<\/a>.<img src=”https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/fresnoland.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/04\/cropped-Fresnoland_FacebookProfile.png?resize=150%2C150&quality=80&ssl=1″ style=”width:1em;height:1em;margin-left:10px;”><\/p>\n
<img id=”republication-tracker-tool-source” src=”https:\/\/fresnoland.org\/?republication-pixel=true&post=91724″ style=”width:1px;height:1px;”><script> PARSELY = { autotrack: false, onload: function() { PARSELY.beacon.trackPageView({ url: “https:\/\/fresnoland.org\/2026\/08\/31\/judge-sides-against-fresno-county-transportation-measure-lawsuit-measure-s-will-be-on-the-november-ballot-for-now\/”, urlref: window.location.href }); } } <\/script> <script id=”parsely-cfg” src=”\/\/cdn.parsely.com\/keys\/fresnoland.org\/p.js”><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"by Pablo Orihuela, Fresnoland August 31, 2026 The Fresno County Superior Court ruled on Monday that the state…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":450340,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[92028,112,14447,178157,114,113,175501,38862],"class_list":["post-450339","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-fresno","tag-ab-1923","tag-fresno","tag-fresno-county-board-of-supervisors","tag-fresno-county-v-state-of-california","tag-fresno-headlines","tag-fresno-news","tag-jonathan-skiles","tag-measure-c"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/450339","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=450339"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/450339\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/450340"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=450339"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=450339"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=450339"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}