MENDOCINO CO., 7/21/26 — Mendocino County spent the spring building a case that its roads are failing faster than it can fix them. On Tuesday three supervisors voted to put the matter to voters in the form of a 1% sales tax that would go to road repairs. Two voted no, and the measure died.
The ordinance would have imposed a 1% sales and use tax across the unincorporated county, projected to raise about $5.5 million a year for pavement work and road crews. Supervisor John Haschak moved to adopt it and Chair Bernie Norvell seconded. Haschak, Norvell and Supervisor Ted Williams voted for it. Supervisors Madeline Cline and Maureen Mulheren voted against, and the motion failed 3-2.
Under state law, a county ordinance imposing a special transactions and use tax has to clear a two-thirds vote of the full board before it can go on a ballot. Two-thirds of five supervisors is four.
That ends the matter for this year. A measure has to be filed in the first week of August to make it on the November ballot The board holds no meetings in August, and its next meeting is Sept. 1. Today was the last practical date to act.
What the supervisors said
The three who voted yes framed it as a question for voters rather than for themselves.
Supervisor Ted Williams boiled it down to a simple statement: “If we want better roads, we have to pay for it.”
He didn’t expect Sacramento to close the difference. State funds usually come with very specific limitations for how they are used. “The system of allocations at a state level doesn’t seem quite fair, but I’m not holding my breath for legislators in the LA and San Francisco metros to decide to give Mendocino more. So I think this is really our only pathway. If we want better roads, we have to self-fund.”
Haschak, who made the motion, called it a hard decision. “These are hard times for everyone, but looking at the big picture, we do need to fund the roads better,” he said. “I think that the Department of Transportation is doing the best they can with the few resources they have. I believe in democracy,” he finished, “and I think that we as a board should give the people the right to decide whether they want better roads or not.”
Earlier he pressed the department on the cost of standing still. “Before you know it, we have a $600 million gap between what we want our roads to be and what we have,” he said. “If we just do what we’re doing, we’re digging a bigger hole for ourselves.”
Norvell said he had not heard much public enthusiasm for the tax but thought voters should get an opinion. “So I’m in favor of this,” he said.
He was blunter as the discussion closed. “We’ve been talking about this for years, and we know there isn’t any other hope for roads if we don’t allow taxpayers to decide if they want to invest in roads,” he said. “The conditions will continue to deteriorate.”
Why no?
Cline told the board her position hadn’t moved since the spring.
“My position hasn’t really changed on this since our discussion in March, where I did not support moving forward with it,” she said. “I didn’t want to continue to invest time in it because my constituents, frankly, are not interested in supporting it.”
She said she understood the case. “I do understand the merits of it. I think it makes sense in some regards. In other regards, it doesn’t make sense.” She said she had even made the self-help case — counties that tax themselves for roads qualify for state transportation money the others can’t get — and it hadn’t moved her district’s voters.
Cline also said the ballot itself wasn’t her objection. “I think it’s good to put it forward and have it on the ballot, but ultimately it’s just not something I can support due to the conversations I’ve had with constituents,” she said. “I’ll continue to share information if it does get put on the ballot in a neutral way.”
Mulheren cast the other no vote without offering an explanation.
The objection from the coast
Public comment before the vote centered on one contentious theme: which parts of the county have gotten road money in the past.
Dave Shpak, a Gualala Ridge resident who said he supports the idea of the tax, told the board his street has a pavement condition index under 25 — the band the county’s own pavement consultant classifies as failed — and isn’t in the county’s current 20-year plan. Its only prospect is the proposed 18-year plan the tax would fund.
“There is nothing in the proposed county transportation transactions and use special tax that gives any clue how many years of paying another 1% on every purchase I make in the county will go by while my street goes to bits,” he said. By his reading he would be paying until 2035 or 2036 before the county reached his road.
Then, speaking of the proposed measure that would have needed a two-thirds majority at the polls, he named the problem the board was about to run into: “What makes you think that the absence of geographic equity is going to convince south coast voters to put in even more to get less?”
Shpak also noted that the 18-year implementation schedule the tax would pay for doesn’t appear in the five exhibits attached to the item.
Gualala’s Kevin Evans asked the board to publish how much sales tax revenue each district generates, how much road funding each district receives, and how much has gone to coastal and Anderson Valley roads. He said Iverson, Stagecoach and Ten Mile Cutoff roads have not been maintained since 2001.
Nephele Barrett, executive director of the Mendocino Council of Governments, told the board the squeeze is structural. The federal gas tax has not risen since 1993 and is charged per gallon, she said, while project costs have climbed; fuel-based revenue is falling as vehicles grow more efficient, and rural counties carry more road per resident than urban ones.
Supervisor Ted Williams argued the benefit is countywide regardless of whose road gets paved. “Even if our own favorite road isn’t on the list to be replaced anytime soon, having this whole system upgraded means there’s more road maintenance dollars available for the remaining roads,” he said. “So my road may not be on the list anytime soon, but the potholes on my road will have more resources available.”
The case the county made
The Department of Transportation said the county “does not have sufficient general fund revenue to increase its budget for road maintenance without significantly reducing funding for other essential county services.”
The county takes care of 1,017 miles of road. About 675 of them are paved. That is more road than many richer counties have to keep up, the department says.
Roads are scored from 0 to 100. Mendocino’s average 47, which counts as poor. The department says it would take about $220.1 million over the next ten years to get them back to good.
State gas-tax money covers part of that — about $65.8 million, through a program the county calls the 20-Year Plan. The funding for that program can only go so far—and in Mendocino County, it does not reach 317 miles of paved road.
The sales tax was meant to fix those 317 miles over about 18 years. It would also have brought back road workers the county cut between 2019 and 2022. Of every dollar it raised, 40 cents was set aside for pavement work, 50 cents for repairs and 10 cents for crews.
The department says that with the tax, the county’s road score would reach 64 by 2036. Without it, 50.
Had it reached the ballot, the tax would have only passed if two-thirds of unincorporated voters approved it. It would have started in 2027 and wouldn’t have sunset; the ordinance says the authority to levy it “shall not expire until such time as it is repealed by the qualified voters of the County.” Revenue would have flowed into a special fund usable only for roads, with an annual expenditure plan adopted before July 1 each year and a citizen oversight committee reviewing spending in public.
The scorecard the county also published
The 20-year comparison the county attached to the adoption vote is its own report card on the existing program, and it isn’t all good news. Most treated roads gained 40 to 90 points. Several lost ground.
A road can lose ground for two different reasons. Some were fixed and then wore out again. Pavement does not stay fixed. Caspar Little Lake Road went from 70 in 2016 to 34 in 2026. A stretch of Comptche Ukiah Road fell from 98 to 75. A road paved in the plan’s first years can be worn down by year eight, which is where the county is now.
The current 20-Year Plan runs 12 more years. It still doesn’t reach those 317 miles.
17.6 miles per year paved…. Howard needs to retire, old dog enjoys holding up the show. Contract out to a real paving contractor. Let the DOT crews handle minor maintenance and repairs. They don’t have the manpower, resources or expertise to build roads right. Not downing our DOT guys, but the county has painted the picture; we have too much road for our crews. Same reason Caltrans contracts out.
Definitely never going to vote for more taxes paid to a government managed by the same people who caused this fiscal crisis and have plans to continue it.
20 year plan?? While you say the job you do won’t last 20 years (which is correct). So what are you wasting money and time planning for 20 years down the road?