The late Yogi Berra, 15-time Major League Baseball All-Star, once famously said: “When you come to a fork in the road, take it!” We have come to the fork and local roads are the issue. Measure P is a proposal for a half-cent countywide sales tax to repair deteriorating city and county roads and, eventually, make major highway improvements locally.
The alternative is to cross our fingers, put up with more bone-jarring rides, absorb the extra cost of deferred repairs, take more safety risks and suffer ever-increasing traffic jams along Highway 25. About half of San Benito County’s working population commutes, and local roads are our economic lifeline; that alone makes Measure P worthwhile. Throw in the commitment to repair city streets and county roads, so many of which are in poor condition, and it becomes indispensable.
Now be honest, when you drive to Gilroy to shop, you never once think about their sales tax rate, do you? Remember, if you live in San Benito County, you do not have a word to say about how Gilroy spends their revenue.
If we approve Measure P, we will have voted on exactly how that extra half-cent will be spent, all of it on local roads and transportation improvements for our needs. Do you want evidence that local funding priorities work? OK, try to imagine the traffic in Hollister without the Highway 25 bypass. It would be brutal. That bypass was funded by local funds from a similar tax enacted decades ago.
It takes a 67 percent yes vote to pass Measure P. We need your vote and those of your neighbors to help ourselves over the next 30 years, and helping ourselves is the best way to spend tax money. No one cares more about our communities and our residents than we do.
Vote yes on Measure P.
