Promise of street repairs could sway support for transportation tax

“Fix streets in my neighborhood.”

That’s what most of the 300 people in recent focus groups said, time and time again, all over Stanislaus County, a consultant said Wednesday.

What about broad new expressways to lighten traffic headaches? Well, sure, people said, as long as local road repair remains the top priority.

Knowing the mood out there is important, transportation leaders heard Wednesday, if they are to have any chance at crafting a 2016 ballot measure that voters throughout the county might support. When you ask people to give themselves a higher tax, the consultant said, you’d better know what people really want.

“We’re not going to be successful with a ‘Give us a half-cent sales tax (increase) and we’ll tell you what we’ll do with the money later’ approach,” outreach expert Kendall Flint of Regional Government Services told members of the Stanislaus Council of Governments. “People really want to know where our money’s going.”

Flint’s team gathered opinions on project priorities in each of the county’s nine cities and some towns such as Salida. She said she’ll share specific findings after another marketing firm conducts a survey of 800 voters throughout the county, in three or four weeks; releasing the information before might color opinions, she said.

But Flint did give a taste of some conclusions – for example, the strong preference for fixing local streets as opposed to regional projects such as the future North and South county corridor expressways, and the Highway 132 Bypass west of downtown Modesto.

Flint said the local-streets preference holds true today in Oakdale, where opposition doomed a previous road tax measure – barely – in 2008; another in 2006 also fell short of capturing the required two-thirds supermajority approval, or 66.67 percent.

The 2008 effort failed by one-quarter of one percentage point despite strong support of nearly 70 percent in Patterson and decent approval rates in Riverbank, Modesto, Turlock and Ceres. Support fell below the two-thirds threshold in unincorporated areas and also in Waterford, Hughson and Oakdale, the latter with less than 61 percent approval.

Other focus group findings:

▪ “The vast majority of people we spoke to have an incredible and, let’s face it, warranted distrust of anytime there’s a tax from the government, of Sacramento coming in and taking the money,” Flint said. Leaders would need to spread the word that by law, state and federal officials would have no access to a locally approved transportation tax, she said.

▪ “The average person in Stanislaus County doesn’t know StanCOG,” Flint said, suggesting that greater familiarity could breed more trust. The agency, which oversees transportation policy and recently has taken on building a regional planning vision, is composed of elected representatives from the nine cities and county government.

▪ People are “very supportive” of a dream to extend Altamont Corridor Express passenger train service from San Joaquin County to Modesto, Turlock and Merced.

▪ “A number” of people showed support for the idea of a citizens oversight panel, Flint said, to make sure agencies would spend the money appropriately.

Polling results will be revealed to StanCOG in September or October, Flint said.

This story was originally published August 19, 2015 at 9:03 PM with the headline "Promise of street repairs could sway support for transportation tax."