Fresno County supervisors delayed a decision Tuesday to place the Better Roads Safe Streets initiative on the November ballot, opting instead to order additional review of the proposed transportation measure on a 3-2 vote. 

Supporters of the initiative now want the county to quickly study the items laid out by board chair Garry Bredefeld and schedule a special meeting so the half-cent road tax can be approved before the Aug. 7 deadline to appear on the November ballot. 

Andy Levine, a Fresno Unified trustee and Better Roads campaign spokesperson, said the board has had since January to request a study on the measure’s impacts. 

“What we’re calling on now is to get the information that they need … do it efficiently, do it before the Aug. 7 deadline, call for a special meeting, get the information you need and still give voters the opportunity to decide this themselves,” Levine said. 

Supervisor Nathan Magsig said the county needs the study to protect against litigation. He said the complex initiative is so “prescriptive” that they need to understand what it all entails. 

“Overall it’ll give the county access to more dollars,” Magsig said. “But it’s so prescriptive on how the dollars have to be spent. I’m concerned that we open ourselves up to litigation.”

Board chair Garry Bredefeld, Magsig, and supervisor Buddy Mendes voted for the study with supervisors Luis Chavez and Brian Pacheco opposed. The hearing before the vote lasted two hours and 20 minutes, reflecting the high stakes involved. 

COG, Better Roads Crew Fields Magsig’s Technical Questions 

Ahead of the meeting, the Fresno Association of Realtors penned a letter directly to Magsig, who figured to be the deciding vote, pleading for him to oppose the study and allow the initiative to go forward. 

J.P. Shamshoian, president of Realty Concepts and board member of Central Valley Community Foundation — which funded and backed the ballot initiative — said the measure would support local roads and increase property values. 

The hour-plus of technical questions posed by Magsig required a crew to answer, including Fresno Council of Governments Executive Director Robert Phipps, Leadership Counsel for Justice and Accountability Executive Director Veronica Garibay, and Fresno Mayor Jerry Dyer. 

How Would the Measure Reduce Traffic Congestion?

Magsig brought up concerns about strategies for traffic mitigation. 

While the ordinance limits road widening as a means of traffic reduction, Phipps said the measure uses sidewalks, bike paths, and bus routes to cut traffic. 

The initiative also contains requirements that pavement quality be maintained above certain levels — 65 pavement condition index — before roads can be widened with tax measure money.  

“We have not evaluated what it would cost the county to bring every road up to that standard,” said Bernard Jimenez, assistant director of the Fresno County Planning Department. 

Other concerns involved mandates for bike lanes and bus routes on some roads, particularly on less-traveled rural roads.  

Garibay said the prescriptive nature of the initiative was intentional to balance “flexibility with accountability.” 

At the end, Magsig said the 34-page document was so prescriptive it opens the county up to litigation. 

“I wish a county representative would have been a part of writing this, I don’t think we would have been here today,” Magsig said. 

Magsig referred to the crafting of the ordinance after the county had torpedoed the original plan as it made its way through the COG.  

2 Years Without Measure C 

Initiative proponents called on supervisors to allow the measure to go before voters in November. Chavez and Pacheco echoed those sentiments. 

Before the vote, Chavez offered a compromise in which the county moved forward with the study while also advancing the initiative to the ballot for voters to decide. That suggestion fell on deaf ears, however. 

Mendota Mayor Victor Martinez said a lapse in road tax money would especially affect rural cities like his.  

He said the matter should be left to voters, not supervisors. 

“Families, businesses, farmers, emergency responders, and school buses depend on safe, reliable roads every single day,” Martinez said. “Preventing this measure from appearing on the ballot denies the public the opportunity to make that decision for themselves.” 

Not having road tax money will also affect the county’s ability to fix roads.  

The county this year will receive $9 million from Measure C, which is the equivalent of about 90 staff, Jimenez said. 

When Measure C stops collecting revenue in June 2027, money will eventually stop coming into the county — there is a wind down period while leftover money gets spent. 

Without that money, layoffs will likely follow, Jimenez said. 

New Initiative to Replace Measure C 

The proposed measure would replace the county’s existing Measure C transportation sales tax, which has funded major infrastructure projects including improvements to Highway 180, Highway 168, and local roads and bridges. 

Measure C has generated more than $2 billion over 40 years and helped leverage about $8 billion in additional state and federal transportation funding. 

If the replacement measure does not make the November ballot, the tax would expire at year’s end, and the next opportunity for a transportation tax proposal would not come until 2028.