sales tax – Enviro Updates

SMART needs just a simple majority on Measure B to lock in crucial tax revenue for 30 more years

May 12, 2026

Austin Murphy and Emma Murphy, PRESS DEMOCRAT

Was this the SMART train, or the Lexington Avenue local during a New York City rush hour?

It took several minutes on the morning of April 18 for passengers on the platform at the Santa Rosa Downtown station to pack themselves onto a southbound train. With the Butter & Egg Days festival happening in Petaluma, four stops south, this was an especially crowded day on SMART, with over 7,200 riders — about 2,500 more than its daily average.

“There’s nowhere to park near the parade,” a mom explained to her two young children, once they were all aboard. “So we’re taking the train!”

On one side of the tracks, as SMART trip No. 9 eased into the Petaluma North station 20 minutes later, was the paved pathway for cyclists and pedestrians, part of a trail network that one day is meant to stretch 70 miles when completed, from Larkspur to Cloverdale. On the other were seven half-finished apartment buildings on land sold by SMART that will eventually hold 131 affordable housing units.

The bustling tableau — packed trains within walking distance of low-cost housing, connecting communities with less reliance on automobiles — was precisely what the founders of the Sonoma-Marin Area Rail Transit district envisioned in their successful campaign almost 20 years ago to return passenger train service to the North Bay after a decades-long hiatus.

Transportationpublic transit, sales tax, SMART, SMART Measure B, trains

SMART supporters submit petition for tax renewal measure

November 25, 2025

Adrian Rodriquez, NORTH BAY BUSINESS JOURNAL

North Bay voters could decide within months whether to throw Sonoma-Marin Area Rail Transit a financial lifeline or let it fail.

The quarter-cent sales tax that collects more than $51 million annually, or about half of the agency’s revenue, is set to expire in 2029. Without an extension, the agency would be forced to cease operations.

On Friday, a coalition of SMART supporters filed an initiative seeking to extend the tax for 30 years. The petition aims to put a measure on the June 2 ballot.

The petition was submitted three months ahead of the deadline. To be successful it needs signatures of at least 10% of registered voters between the two counties, or 48,809. The petitioners submitted 71,851 signatures.

Transportationsales tax, SMART, trains

Sonoma County business coalition fails in costly bid to sink local tax measures

November 6, 2020

Tyler Silvy, THE PRESS DEMOCRAT

Some local officials who split sharply with the anti-tax group said the voting results represented the fall of an inflexible coalition that had lost touch with the electorate.

A powerful coalition of Sonoma County business groups that spent tens of thousands of dollars to fight local tax measures up and down the ballot appears to have lost every race, the group conceded Wednesday, a stinging blow for industry leaders who were piecing together what went wrong.

The 2020 Tax Moratorium Coalition, a group comprised of the Santa Rosa Metro Chamber, the Sonoma County Farm Bureau, the North Bay Leadership Council and the North Coast Builders Exchange, spent nearly $80,000 to oppose eight county- and city-level tax measures, including a countywide sales tax extension for roads and transit projects and a new countywide tax to bolster mental health and homeless services.

But with preliminary results showing a solid majority of voters backed all measures, rejecting the group’s message countywide, county leaders and political experts say the coalition is due for a reckoning.

“I was dumbfounded when they took this position,” Sonoma County Board of Supervisors Chair Susan Gorin said Tuesday night. “And I think this is a repudiation of any coalition of groups to take an inflexible position on every tax measure across the board.”

Agriculture/Food System, Local Organizationsequity, roads, sales tax

Sonoma County officials shaping pitch for early renewal of transportation sales tax in 2020

August 21, 2019

Kevin Fixler, THE PRESS DEMOCRAT

Sonoma County’s transportation authority has taken another step toward asking voters in 2020 for early renewal of a sales tax that pays for regional road and transportation upgrades, hoping to guarantee infrastructure funding for decades to come.

A subcommittee for the countywide transportation entity’s 12-member board approved spending up to $75,000 on consulting services from Santa Rosa-based Muelrath Public Affairs and polling through EMC Research, headquartered in Oakland. The two firms will help shape the questions to be asked of likely voters starting next month, offering results this fall to the full board so they can decide whether to place a measure on the ballot in November 2020.

Board members hope the poll also offers insight into voters’ appetite for a quarter-cent tax versus a possible half-cent option, the type of projects the measure might fund and how long it should remain on the books. Measure M, the county’s current quarter-cent sales tax for transportation, was approved in November 2004 and is set to expire in April 2025.

“The whole goal is to reach out and actually know what the public’s interest is,” said Cotati Councilman Mark Landman, chairman of the Sonoma County Transportation Authority. “It’s important when you undertake something like a tax measure to show clearly to the public the benefits that they’ll receive.”

The survey work comes as several other potential countywide ballot measures appear to be taking shape for the primary or general elections next year. Sonoma-Marin Area Rail Transit board members are poised to vote later this fall on whether to seek an early renewal of the quarter-cent sales tax that supports operation of the commuter train system. Sonoma County also is exploring the possibility of proposing a pair of tax measures to bolster firefighting services and mental health care.

Transportationfunding, sales tax

SMART board laying groundwork for sales-tax renewal amid looming financial crisis

August 11, 2019

Kevin Fixler, THE PRESS DEMOCRAT

The daunting financial challenges disclosed last week by the North Bay’s commuter rail system have only increased the urgency within SMART to convince voters to renew a sales tax that funds the 2-year-old train line and underpins its future.

SMART officials are beginning to craft the talking points for a campaign to persuade voters that, despite past rail agency missteps, they should extend the agency’s tax funding another two or three decades, allowing it to more readily refinance its mounting debt costs.

To be successful, members of the Sonoma-Marin Area Rail Transit board say, the campaign must show voters how the system has improved the quality of life across the region, beyond its 1.4 million riders to date, and enhanced the economies of the two counties it serves.

“I think it’s a reasonable ask,” said Sonoma County Supervisor Shirlee Zane, a nine-year board member. “We’re asking to extend a sales tax in order to assure that we’re here and healthy for the next 30 years, and can continue to expand and be convenient for riders. That’s the message.”

To renew the tax, however, SMART also must overcome its faults and earn the trust of two-thirds of the voters in Sonoma and Marin counties. Revenues have fallen far short of initial projections, construction costs have doubled, and buildout of the rail line and parallel bike path is far behind the original schedule.

Transportationfunding, sales tax, SMART

SMART says it faces multimillion-dollar deficits without sales-tax renewal

August 8, 2019

Kevin Fixler, THE PRESS DEMOCRAT

The North Bay’s commuter rail system could face crippling multimillion-dollar deficits within three years if voters in Sonoma and Marin counties don’t pass a proposed sales-tax extension in March, SMART officials revealed for the first time Wednesday.

Starting in 2022, Sonoma-Marin Area Rail Transit would need to slash at least $9 million annually — about a seventh of its operating expenses — resulting in cuts to service and SMART’s workforce if the 12-member board opts not to seek early renewal of the tax next year, or if the extension is put to voters and they reject it, officials said.

The agency’s financial forecast showed operating expenses climbing from $58 million this fiscal year to about $63 million two years from now, with tax and fare revenues not expected to keep pace. The rise is driven mostly by escalating payments on debt accrued in SMART’s buildout, as well as rising labor, fuel and maintenance costs.

“We just need to call a spade a spade as we see it today,” Farhad Mansourian, SMART’s general manager, told the board. “Doing nothing is not an option and pretty bad for everybody. We’re being straightforward. We don’t want to mislead the members of the public. We want to tell them what the pains are, what the chokeholds are and what our options are.”

The newly unveiled forecast marked the first public acknowledgment by SMART officials that the 2-year-old line already faces a potentially deepening near-term shortfall in its budget. The projections did not account for the possibility of a recession, which would carve an even larger hole into the system’s budget. More than 70% of SMART’s spending on operations is supported by the quarter-cent sales tax.

It isn’t set to expire for another decade, but SMART officials say early renewal would allow them to restructure and reduce debt payments, which are now set to rise to $16 million next year and $18 million by 2022.

Without the tax renewal and financial adjustments it would support, SMART would be forced to cut commuter service in half, according to the agency’s finance chief, effectively sidelining 18 of the 36 train trips. Dozens of jobs could be also eliminated from the workforce of about 200, officials signaled.

Transportationfinancial planning, sales tax, SMART

SMART mulls early renewal of sales tax, reduction in fares for low-income riders

April 7, 2019

Kevin Fixler, THE PRESS DEMOCRAT

The North Bay’s commuter rail service will consider a plan to reduce fares for low-income riders as part of a larger proposal from SMART staff to next year seek voter renewal of the 20-year sales tax measure that’s funded the system since 2009.

The moves come as Sonoma-Marin Area Rail Transit, which launched service in August 2017, assesses its long-term financial picture with an eye on restructuring debt and accelerating its delayed full build-out.

It expects to complete the southern-most station in Larkspur by year’s end, expanding its operating line to 45 miles of the planned 70-mile corridor. But guaranteed future funding in the form of an earlier tax renewal could help the agency speed up its extension of service north to Healdsburg and Cloverdale, according to SMART staff.

“The reality is we’re a transit operation, and we need to plan ongoing operations, we need to plan expansions,” Erin McGrath, SMART’s chief financial officer told SMART’s 12-member board at its Wednesday meeting. “We can’t have ballot box uncertainty in our future. We can’t have our revenues stopping in 10 years.”

Voters in Marin and Sonoma counties together in 2008 passed the quarter-cent sales that represents SMART’s primary funding stream. Measure Q will sunset in 2029, and the agency’s staff is recommending pursuing its renewal as early as the 2020 general election, ensuring, if passed by a two-thirds majority, funding for another 20 years through 2049.

Transportationaffordable transit, commuters, public transit, sales tax, SMART