Santa Clara County Passes Transportation Parcel Tax – On Sunnyvale

The Santa Clara County Report / Mike Forster

Dateline June 6, 2018, San Jose California

Yesterday, Santa Clara County voters passed Proposition SC3, a parcel tax to fund 12 transportation projects around the county.  The projects will make roadway and transit changes in all corners of the county – from Gilroy to Los Gatos, from Cupertino to Milpitas.

An unusual feature of this measure is that, even though the projects benefit communities throughout the county, this parcel tax is levied only on the residents and businesses in the City of Sunnyvale.  Residents and businesses of the other cities and unincorporated county areas will not have to pay this tax even though these projects will benefit them.

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This parcel tax to benefit Santa Clara County did not happen, of course.  If it had been proposed, it would have been summarily rejected as patently unfair to the residents and businesses of Sunnyvale.

However, replace “Santa Clara County” with “the 9 Bay Area counties”, the “residents and businesses of Sunnyvale” with “bridge toll payers”, and the “parcel tax” with the “bridge toll increase” (actually a tax), and this is exactly what Regional Measure 3 has done.

RM3 only works because our geography has our beloved Bay in the middle that has 7 bridges which 400,000 vehicles daily must cross, and therefore can be easily taxed.  The 7 million of us residents should not impose a $4.5B tax on this captive minority of our friends and neighbors.  If the Bay Area wants a set of projects to address roadways and transit, then we should pass a tax that applies to all residents and businesses in the 9 counties.

RM3 is additionally unfair because this tax falls more heavily on our lower income friends and neighbors who can’t afford to live on the same side of a bridge as their jobs or clients.  Our less affluent residents are paying a tax to benefit the more affluent.  Many of those are low income workers or small businesses that can least afford the additional cost.

Regional Measure 3 is patently unfair to the commuters and businesses who must use bridges to travel to jobs and clients on the other side of a bridge.  This unfairness should not be allowed to continue.  The Metropolitan Transit Commission and/or our State Legislature should repeal this unfair tax.