Mayor of Sonora celebrates Measure Y’s success
Voters reject Tuolumne County’s Measure X for fire, police, roads
Sonora Mayor Mark Plummer sees a brighter future ahead for the city following the passage of Measure Y, a 1% sales tax increase within the city limits that will provide an estimated $4 million in additional revenue per year.
Though there were still thousands of ballots left to count as Wednesday, the final results released on election night Tuesday showed the measure ahead by a wide enough margin that Plummer felt comfortable enough to celebrate what he described as “life changing for the city.”
“This means that instead of a glide path to obscurity, we have a 20-year window to invest in our future and to make the city a lot more attractive and interesting for business and pleasant to live in,” he said.
The measure needed a simple majority to pass and was sitting at 730 “yes” votes, or about 61%, to 472 “no” votes, or about 39%, in the last round of results released after 10 p.m. Tuesday night.
However, a separate ballot initiative called Measure X that would have increased the sales tax by 1% in the unincorporated area of Tuolumne County outside of the threesquare-mile City of Sonora limits failed to gain enough
“We welcome their input and encourage their attendance at our meetings, especially when we start looking at budget and goals and how this will be appropriated.”
— Mark Plummer, mayor of Sonora
support from voters in Tuesday’s election.
Measure X needed at least a twothirds majority to pass because the county Board of Supervisors chose to earmark the additional revenue specifically for law enforcement, fire protection and roads services.
The measure appeared all but doomed for failure when the initial batch of 15,409 ballots were counted and “yes” votes led by only a narrow margin of less than 51%, but it’s fate was sealed by the second round of results that showed “no” votes pulling ahead after an additional 1,559 votes were counted.
Unlike Measure X, which had very little publicly visible promotion, supporters of Measure Y put forth a more aggressive outreach campaign to convince voters why they should support raising the city’s sales tax rate from 7.75% to 8.75%.
Plummer joined five former mayors, including current Councilman Matt Hawkins, in penning an open letter to city residents about why the additional revenue was needed and how it could benefit them.
City officials are likely to bring the topic of the measure’s approval to the council for discussion at a meeting in the near future, at which point Plummer said he hopes the public will get involved.
“We welcome their input and encourage their attendance at our meetings, especially when we start looking at budget and goals and how this will be appropriated,” Plummer said.
Plummer thanked those who supported the measure, including Mayor Pro-tem Ann Segerstrom, whom he said spoke at some functions on his behalf, and Councilman Andy Merrill, who helped distribute educational materials.
In reaction to the measure’s approval, City Administrator Melissa Eads said the city is seeking a consultant to help it “assess internal efficiency, work within the community to identify service expectations and needs, and develop a plan that prioritizes the uses of the new revenue.”
Eads said possible uses for the new revenue the council has previously discussed include stabilizing police staffing levels, repairs to the Sonora Fire Department, vehicle and equipment replacement, sidewalk and road maintenance, and developing a growth strategy that will provide for increased revenue through economic development as opposed to taxation.
“Accountability and transparency with the public’s investment is the council’s priority,” she stated in an email. “A public budgetary process will be forthcoming in order for staff to receive council direction on spending of Measure Y funding.”
It marks the second time city voters have approved a sales tax increase in the past 20 years, following the approval of Measure I in the early 2000s that raised it by 0.5% specifically for police, fire and public works funding.
Measure X was the second unsuccessful attempt by the county in recent years at getting voters to approve increasing the unincorporated area’s sales tax rate from the state-mandated minimum of 7.25% to 8.25%.
The county also put forward a proposed parcel tax for additional fire funding that failed in a special election last year, though voters did approve increasing the unincorporated area’s Transient Occupancy Tax from 10% to 12% in the November 2020 election.