Fresno County’s top elections official on Tuesday overrode supervisors’ intentions, putting the Better Roads, Safe Streets transportation tax measure onto the November ballot. And an 11th-hour Fresno City Council meeting Wednesday will give that body a chance to remove the city’s proposed general tax from the ballot, which many say would have competed with Better Roads, Safe Streets.

Fresno County Clerk/Registrar of Voters James Kus said a state law approved last Thursday instructed him to put the half-cent transportation tax on the November ballot, regardless of supervisors’ intent to put it on the March 2028 ballot.

Supervisor Nathan Magsig said the March 2028 date would have abided by election law that requires a measure’s approval within 88 days of an election.

“I have been given direction from the state, through the state, via Assembly Bill 1923 to place any initiative found in the county to be sufficient as of July 8 of 2026 on the November 2026 ballot,” Kus told supervisors.

In response, Fresno County in a 3-2 vote approved pursuing litigation against the state, the Better Roads initiative, and Kus, Fresno County Counsel Doug Sloan announced out of closed session Tuesday. Supervisors Nathan Magsig, Garry Bredefeld, and Buddy Mendes approved the lawsuit.

As a county elected official, Kus typically relies on representation from the county. Earlier this year, the county sued another elected official, Fresno County Assessor/Recorder Paul Dictos, but the county would not provide representation to him. Dictos told GV Wire he had to set aside $1 million from his department budget for legal representation that supervisors will have to pay back if he wins. He hired attorney Patience Milrod to represent him.

Council Has Until 5 P.M. Wednesday to Pull City General Tax

Election law gives Fresno City Council a last-minute chance to remove the city’s competing general sales tax measure that the council approved 6-1 on July 31.

Late last week, Fresno Mayor Jerry Dyer decided to keep the measure on the ballot to offset the risk there might be no transportation tax on the ballot if he removed it.

Shortly after Kus’ announcement, four Fresno City Councilmembers — Nick Richardson, Miguel Arias, Brandon Vang, and Tyler Maxwell — called for a special meeting to remove the city’s proposed general tax measure from November’s ballot, meaning voters will not have two transportation taxes to pick from.

Council President Nelson Esparza told GV Wire previously he would not call for a special meeting.

Maxwell, however, said that after having conversations with union representatives, removing the item from the ballot would be the “right path forward.”

“It seems fairly clear that the (Better Roads, Safe Streets) is gonna be prevailing and moving forward for the voters to decide upon, and I think having too many initiatives on the ballot is a disservice,” Maxwell told GV Wire.

Council will have to vote on removing the measure from the ballot before 5 p.m. Wednesday to abide by state election law.

The Board Followed State Election Law: Bredefeld

Under normal circumstances, in order for a proposition to qualify for the ballot, supervisors would have to approve a resolution by no later than 88 days before an election.

That all changed last week when Assembly Member Esmeralda Soria, D-Fresno, and state Sen. Anna Caballero put forward AB 1923 to force Better Roads, Safe Streets onto the ballot. That law, signed by Gov. Gavin Newsom one day before the Aug. 7 deadline, allowed the transportation tax to qualify.

Fresno County Supervisor Luis Chavez called the signatures of those who signed the petition for the Better Roads, Safe Streets tax measure “almost sacred.” He said supervisors need to abide by state law.

“They signed their name with the expectation they would have an election November 2026,” Chavez said.

At the meeting, it was revealed that Soria had sent the board a notice saying that AB 1923 was “the law of the land,” according to Chavez. Chavez also pointed out another notice from the Better Roads, Safe Streets coalition that they would pursue legal action if it was not approved to be on the ballot in November.

The two state legislators rewrote a bill intended to provide emergency debt relief to hospitals, including local hospitals, to get Better Roads, Safe Streets onto the ballot.

Earlier this year, Kus said too many duplicate signatures in support of the measure meant his staff had to do a full review of the petition. Of the 32,000 signatures turned in, 7,547 were found to be invalid, Kus told GV Wire.

Fresno County Board Chair Garry Bredefeld said it was the fault of the coalition for having too many signature errors, which delayed a study by the county of the measure’s potential impacts. The completed study was posted last week for this week’s Board of Supervisors meeting.

“This board did nothing wrong, it followed state election law. The people who are proposing this, who hijacked the process a year ago in (the Fresno Council of Governments) didn’t like the fact that they didn’t get their way, the fact that it would wait until March 2028,” Bredefeld said. “So they got the governor and their friends up in Sacramento to enact a new law, something that’s never been done before.”

County Needs $30 Million Annually to Get to Required Pavement Condition

County staff on Tuesday delivered the 400-page study that caused the legal strife, with county planning department directors calling Better Roads, Safe Streets “ambiguous” and not consistent with the county plans for growth.

Bernard Jimenez, assistant director of public works and planning, said that while the county plans for growth in the coming decades, the 30-year measure limits how the county can spend money, with possible lawsuits for violating spending rules.

The measure requires a countywide pavement condition quality of “70” before money can be spent to widen roads. Magsig said there are many county roads that need to be expanded because of capacity limitations.

With an average of “65” countywide, Jimenez said the allocation to the county would need to be $30 million annually to achieve that level, opposed to the forecasted average of $19.7 million in the first 10 years. The city of Fresno would get nearly $40 million.

The county subcontracted for the study with VRPA Technologies, which actively opposed Better Roads, Safe Streets early in the process.

Consultant Tony Boren, former Fresno Council of Governments director, told GV Wire that the study’s results “speak for itself” and reaffirmed why he opposed it. He said the results of the study “justified the reason the county called for the study.” 

Could Better Roads Coalition Stack the Oversight Committee?

Public Works and Planning Department Director Steven White said that if the county is at the table guiding implementation and strategy for how the tax dollars are spent, “we can work through a lot of the issues.”

Language in Better Roads, Safe Streets places significant requirements on roads repairs, mandating bike lanes, sidewalks, and bus stops in places “where feasible.”

And while coalition representative Veronica Garibay said at the July board meeting that the intent of the measure was not to force those requirements where it didn’t make sense, Magsig at that same meeting wanted clarity about legal liability.

Garibay’s Leadership Counsel for Justice and Accountability has pursued legal action against Fresno County, the city of Fresno, and other bodies.

The organization currently has a lawsuit against Caltrans over a new Highway 99 interchange.

The Better Roads, Safe Streets proposal eliminates the current Measure C oversight committee, the Fresno County Transportation Authority, in favor of an oversight committee selected by the Fresno Council of Governments.

Former Fresno County Supervisor Henry Perea told GV Wire that the Central Valley Community Foundation and Garibay’s group could arrange for the committee to be made up of voices favorable to themselves.

The Central Valley Community Foundation spent $810,000 to get Better Roads, Safe Streets on the ballot.

“They are going to engage in, I believe, in an 11-member community group that’s going to have decision-making authority on the expenditure of that money,” Perea said. “That’s going to be part of the campaign. There’s no question this is a classic ‘follow the money’ and you’ll see how the taxpayers are being set up to get fleeced.”