Measure Q will be devastating to San Benito County, with huge negative impacts that will last for years, as Q’s restrictions would go until 2050. Why? Let’s look at some basic county facts and the consequences of Measure Q:
Revenue: We are a very poor county in terms of revenue. This is for two primary reasons: First, dating back to Proposition 13, San Benito County is locked into receiving only 11 cents on the dollar from the local property taxes that are collected. This compares to many counties that are receiving 30 to 40-plus cents on the dollar.
Second, we are almost exclusively dependent on the property taxes that we do collect, because we have such a small amount of commercial development in the unincorporated areas of the county—meaning we receive little sales tax revenue from businesses. And remember, we’re talking about the unincorporated areas of San Benito County. Businesses within the city limits of Hollister and San Juan Bautista provide virtually no sales tax revenue to the county itself.
Services/Infrastructure: Because the county doesn’t have enough revenue, it simply is not able to pay for the level of services and infrastructure that we so badly need here. Fixing our roads, paying for more sheriff’s deputies and fire protection, building new parks, expanding our library, and so on, all cost money. Our overall lack of revenue handcuffs us in virtually everything we do, preventing us from improving our services and infrastructure throughout the community.
Commercial Development: This is why, back in 2015, the Board of Supervisors made commercial nodes in the county such a priority in the General Plan—to identify logical locations within the unincorporated areas of the county where commercial development could take place, in order to generate increased sales tax revenue going forward.
The proponents of Q say that they want a “vote of the people” on all rezoning decisions. This may sound like a worthy goal to some, but the consequences of this approach will be “closing the county for business” for the next generation. Why? Because no commercial developer in their right mind is going to go through the time and expense of all of the planning stages of a new business, and then, after waiting for the next county-wide election, hope to convince the voters to support their project.
In essence, the vote in November on Q will determine now whether any commercial development in the county will take place until 2050, because if Q passes, potential commercial development will likely never get to a future “vote of the people.”
Housing: If this initiative targeted residential development, it might make a bit more sense. But it really has very little to do with housing; it’s all about eliminating commercial nodes and making it all but impossible to attract new businesses to the county. If it was serious about reducing housing growth, Measure Q would have applied to not only the unincorporated parts of the county, but also to the City of Hollister, where the vast majority of new housing has been built in recent years.
Jobs: Certainly, providing more jobs in our county would seem to be a worthy goal, but apparently not to the proponents of Measure Q. And we’re talking about a lot of jobs.
The impartial “9111 Report” that the county commissioned to look at the fiscal impacts of Q, as provided for under state law, states, “If voter approval is not granted for (commercial) nodes development, the County would lose the opportunity to create as many as 4,300 jobs by 2035…”
Just think what these local jobs could potentially mean to some of our residents that otherwise have to commute.
Traffic: Fewer commuters because of the added local jobs would in turn mean much less traffic in many parts of our County, certainly less on Highways 25 and 156. But if this initiative passes, all of these job opportunities will go away—and instead, we will continue to see increased traffic as our community inevitably grows and there are more and more commuters on our roads.
Agriculture: We’re told that Measure Q will somehow protect our farmers and ranchers, but instead the vast majority of them are strongly opposed to it. That’s why the Farm Bureau, which represents all agriculture people within the county, has endorsed a “No” position.
Farmers and ranchers see the initiative as taking away their property rights, while eliminating their potential for expansion. It also guts the county’s ability to build and maintain the infrastructure for roads, water and other services that the ag community relies on to be successful.
Who’s Against Q?: Just take a look at the people that are strongly opposed to Measure Q: Sheriff Eric Taylor, Fire Chief Bob Martin Del Campo, Superintendent Shawn Tennenbaum, the Farm Bureau, unions and working families, businesses, the San Benito County Democratic Party and Republican Party. When was the last time that Republicans and Democrats agreed on anything?!
There’s a reason why: Measure Q will devastate the county’s ability to fix our roads and provide proper levels of spending for public safety. It would reduce funding for our schools, and hurt our farmers, ranchers, businesses and residents—all while increasing traffic and destroying local job growth. It will worsen our quality of life for a generation.
Vote NO on Measure Q!
Bob Tiffany
San Benito County Supervisor, District 4
Longtime Resident and Business Owner
Text of Measure Q
The full text of Measure Q, which will appear on the Nov. 8 ballot, is, “Shall an initiative measure be approved to amend the San Benito County General Plan to remove the commercial thoroughfare and commercial regional node land use designations from the General Plan text and maps and require a vote of the people for future amendments redesignating Agriculture, Rangeland, or Rural land use designations for other uses (e.g. residential, commercial, industrial, landfill), with limited exceptions, through 2050?”
Measure Q went too far. If you want to save farmland/open space you need to pay for it.The activist environmentalists should approach the issue of open space and farms from an ecological perspective not the radial political activist environmental approach. Forcing things down people’s throats does not work. Furthermore, letting voters decide what to do with private land is likely unconstitutional.
A better approach would be to work with land trusts and landowners by providing incentives, buying conservation easements, conservation contracts, buying development rights at market value, giving tax breaks, open space credits etc. Or the concerned parties can just buy the land. Anything else is dictatorial and fascistic. The enviro-extremists are a minority trying to dictate policy that burdens land owners and farmers with little benefit to the public.
We elect representatives to represent us when it comes to legislation, law and zoning. Direct ballot measures put up by special interests are usually not in the best interest of the public, just the political interest of the authors/opreatives. These people have a narrow agenda that does not include the people affected by that agenda, And, They are not open to compromise.