One day before a Fresno County Board of Supervisors decision on placing a replacement for Measure C on the November ballot, transportation tax backers said voters  — not politicians — should decide the merits of the Better Roads Safe Streets proposal.

A coalition of mayors and nonprofits held a news conference Monday at the Leadership Counsel for Justice and Accountability headquarters in downtown Fresno. They called on supervisors to not impose a study of the initiative’s economic impacts that would push board  approval past the ballot deadline.

A delay would mean the initiative wouldn’t go on the ballot until 2028. The coalition also has published a study showing how a delay would result in the further degradation of county roads.

Fresno Mayor Jerry Dyer said supervisors need to set aside politics and allow the measure to go before voters.

“It is clear, not just by the 22,000 signatures that were gathered, but by all the community forums that were held, the people of Fresno demand their neighborhood streets be fixed, their sidewalks repaired, and better transportation throughout Fresno County,” Dyer said.

It’s Not Radical to Listen to County Voices: Mouanoutoua

GV Wire reported Thursday that even as the Fresno County Clerk/Registrar of Voters cleared the half-cent road tax for the November ballot, Board Chair Garry Bredefeld said supervisors at their Tuesday meeting could demand a study of the initiative’s economic impacts before approving it. That study would delay approval by a month, pushing it past the Aug. 7 ballot deadline.

The initiative got to the 11th hour approval because the staff of country elections overseer James Kus found too many errors in the signature petitions for it to qualify through a random sample.

Bredefeld and other supervisors are critical of the measure because they believe community activists had too big of a voice in its creation. In fact, the coalition’s nonprofits received a vote many times larger than any other governing body when the Measure C replacement was first being crafted.

The plan created in that process dedicates 29% of the $7.4 billion raised over 30 years to public transit and transit innovation. However, the largest chunk of funding, 65%, goes directly to roads, and 4% to regional projects. Bredefeld and others say the commitment to public transit is too much.

Bredefeld told GV Wire in a statement that the county has an obligation to do due diligence “on the real fiscal and actual road impacts of this measure.”

He criticized the elimination of the Fresno County Transportation Authority, the oversight body of Measure C.

“They eliminate fiscal oversight by the Fresno County Transportation Authority, which had successful oversight for 40 years, and give it to the same radical citizens group that created this fraud on taxpayers. They restrict road expansion where needed.” Bredefeld said. “There are so many issues that need to be addressed and analyzed before this tax rip-off goes before the voters.”

Fresno City Councilmember Nick Richardson said not to let “perfection or your expectation of perfection be the enemy of progress.”

Clovis Mayor Vong Mouanoutoua defended the process and the proposal’s distribution of tax funds. He said it wasn’t backers who were “radical” but rather opponents who argued against the process.

“It is radical to invite thousands of residents from more than 70 zip codes? Is it radical to listen to them? Is it radical to have gathered legally necessary signatures and to earn the right to have this measure in front of all the voters in Fresno County?” Mouanoutoua said.

County Roads Will Degrade Fast: Penbera

The Better Roads Safe Streets coalition commissioned a study by Fresno economist Joseph Penbera looking at the initiative’s impacts on the region.

He said county roads are degrading and the county needs investment to keep them from becoming worse. He said that while roads are on average considered between “fair” and “good,” they will quickly drop to the “poor” category without significant investment.

“If we don’t do this in a matter of less than five years, the streets will go back to ‘poor’ to ‘low-fair.’ So the need is very strong,” Penbera said.

It wouldn’t be until the middle of the second year that the tax would have accumulated enough money to begin executing funds for projects, he said.

The study also showed that the $7.4 billion fund would generate 68,190 jobs over its 30-year lifetime, creating more than $5 billion in labor income.

Also coming out in support of the initiative was the Fresno Association of Realtors, which penned a letter to Fresno County Supervisor Nathan Magsig. He figures to be a key vote on Tuesday.

Veronica Garibay, executive director of Leadership Counsel for Justice and Accountability, said “the debate belongs at the ballot box.”

“The voters fulfilled their responsibility,” Garibay said. “The next step is for the Fresno County Board of Supervisors to fulfill theirs and send the measure to the ballot tomorrow.”