If you want to take advantage of San Benito County’s low sales tax, you might want to act before the New Year.
So far there’s been no organized opposition to the proposed 1 percent increase of the county’s percent sales tax to 8.25 percent, which would see Hollister’s sales tax rise from 8.25 to 9.25 percent.
Measure G, the county sales tax increase for road improvements, including a widening of Highway 25, is on the Nov. 6 ballot, along with Measure H, a new business license fee.
Both measures have public supporters who have filed arguments in favor of the new taxes.
Several groups came together to author an argument in favor of Measure G.
The committee “Repair our Roads and Reduce Traffic, Yes on G 2018” first filed a statement of organization as a recipient committee in favor of the measure back in 2016. The principal officer of the committee listed on the 2016 forms is Mayor Ignacio Velazquez.
The 2018 statement of organization filings listed the new principal officer as former San Benito County supervisor Margie Barrios.
The argument states: “San Benito County roads are crumbling, and traffic is getting worse every day. Traffic on Highway 25 has more than doubled since the 1990s, and San Benito County has an average road condition well below ‘at risk.’ Our poor pavement condition makes us just one of seven California counties whose roads rank significantly worse than the state average.”
More information on Measure G can be found at http://sbcvote.us/pdf/forms/registrar/2018NovemberElection/PR_G.pdf
Measure G, the county sales tax increase for road improvements, including a widening of Highway 25, is on the Nov. 6 ballot.
NO… we voted on this many times already.
There are two issues with Measure G. First, we are once again being asked to pay for widening highway 25 to 4 lanes to the county line. This project is incredibly expensive (look at the ballot pamphlet if you don’t believe it $242,000,000 of $485,000,000 in new taxes) and ultimately will provide little or no traffic benefits. How could this be? The main bottlenecks for the commuter traffic to the SF Bay Area from San Benito County are the lack of available capacity on highway 101 and the interchange at 25 & 101. This is documented in the Caltrans analyses and is plain to see to anyone who drives the roads if one thinks about driver behavior. Additionally, unless there are fewer commuters from the Central Valley, any additional road capacity generated will be used by the commuters coming over Pacheco Pass and shifting even more to 25, Shore Rd., Fairview Rd. and Frazier Lake Rd. The monies from the tax measure are half to pay for this non-beneficial project.
Second, the amount of money raised by this tax from us here in the county still will not fix the south county roads that need the most in repairs and thanks to the 25 project will divert action from some maintenance. Why is that? Because the measure requires that. also most of the repairs are to undo the damage from too many developments (such as Buena Vista subdivisions) and lower priority in town streets. Anyone who has driven Panoche Road will understand why I have huge issues with the assignment of spending in this Measure.
Do I support spending more on repair of our roads and would I be willing to kick in a modest amount of tax payments to do so? Yes I would. But the 25 project is a deal breaker as is the 1% amount of the raise in the sales tax – it is just too much for the benefits we would receive. Better that we retain the state gas tax that is already fixing roads and craft a more modest measure that does not widen 25 until and unless the congestion causing factors are mitigated!
Also, remember that a “NEW” 4 lane road toward Hollister will seduce more people to commute to jobs in the Bay Area but just create more congestion.
A small second note, last time this measure’s clone was on the ballot, by far the majority of the people I talked to were against it not because it was a sales tax, but because of the primary goal being paying for widening 25 to no benefit. This was cited again and again. I note that the primary support this time as last time is from builders and real estate people. I support in-fill of apartments in Hollister, but not conversion of yet more farmland to houses. We need to have modest housing for local workers, not commuter sprawling subdivisions on farmland.