Another month has gone by and March Madness is almost over, thank goodness. Since I’m not much of a basketball fan, at least college basketball, the madness seems a bit over rated, but that doesn’t mean it’s a waste of time. With April arriving I’m looking forward to the Masters and my trip to attend a practice round on Wednesday. I know it’s a long trip for one day of watching a practice round with spoiled millionaire golfers, but it’s not very often I get a chance to cross off another item from the list.

This past week Governor Brown and the State Legislature proposed $5 Billion dollars annually in new taxes for Road Repair and Transportation investments for the next 10 years. The new bill will raise the gas tax 12¢ a gallon, add another fee to your annual vehicle registration and also add a fee to owners of zero emission vehicles. That part is my favorite as they are currently freeloaders who use the roads within the state but since they purchase no gasoline they do not pay for their share of transportation repairs or improvements. I think they forgot another group that use roadways but pay no road taxes, bicycles. Bike riders want more bike lanes and trails which I agree are needed, but they should be contributing to the effort. They could contribute money for purposes of improving said bike lanes with a small tax on all items related to their activity. Sportsmen have a small tax added to all fishing and hunting related items that fund conservation efforts that benefit the environment as well as fishing and hunting. It would be a win-win for all parties involved.

I do have a question regarding the ten year time frame for these new taxes, what will happen to our transportation maintenance funding when the provisions expire?

Another question I have is how much of the current gas tax money will continue to be redirected toward the general fund with this new funding source instead of funding transportation projects?

Our next Chapter meeting will be a lunch meeting at Sacramento Hilton. The featured speaker will be Matt Machado, Stanislaus County Public Works Director discussing their new Transportation Funding sales tax that passed last November and the upcoming projects related to the new funding source.

Next ACEC State event will be the ACEC Legislative visit day on May 2, 2017 in Sacramento. I hope to see everybody in April at the ACEC lunch meeting.

Cheers!