Santa Barbara voters will decide this November whether to increase the city’s sales-tax rate by one cent — from 7.75 percent to 8.75 percent — to fund a ballooning backlog of basic street repair and other urgent infrastructure needs. With councilmembers Frank Hotchkiss and Randy Rowse dissenting, the City Council voted last Tuesday to place the measure on the 2017 general election ballot, which will require a simple majority to pass.
City officials estimate the tax increase would bring in an extra $22 million a year to help cover the massive gap between the current annual cost to maintain roads and facilities ($25 million) and how much is actually budgeted for such work ($4 million). The shortfall is a direct result of the dissolution five years ago of Santa Barbara’s Redevelopment Agency, which siphoned $100 million away from the city.
City Engineer Brian D’Amour told the council that road repair and repaving is the most pressing need. Right now, he said, Santa Barbara’s main “arterial roads” are treated and patched when needed. Residential streets receive little to no attention. Sixty-four percent of all roads are considered “poor, at risk, or failed.” While the revenue to fund repairs has remained steady over the last 15 years, the cost of asphalt has risen 161 percent. Slurry sealing, a Band-Aid fix typically carried out in six-year cycles, costs $16,000 a block, said D’Amour. But it doesn’t address deeper structural issues. After a while it’s like painting over dry rot, he explained. The price tag for a full repaving is $80,000.