California mayors within the Central Valley aren’t proud of a plan to dip into native taxes and zoning for the state’s long-delayed excessive velocity rail tasks — saying they’ll sue the state if it goes by way of with it.
Fresno Mayor Jerry Dyer and several other different Central Valley leaders despatched a scathing letter to Excessive Velocity Rail Authority CEO Ian Choudri calling a plan to “seize” native property and gross sales tax development inside a half-mile of future Excessive Velocity Rail stations “unconstitutional.”
The strongly worded letter dated April 23 referred to as the plan a “legally doubtful scheme” to grab counties’ tax {dollars} and “units a harmful statewide precedent.”
The rail authority isn’t planning to boost taxes, however reasonably to take a portion of elevated property and gross sales tax revenues close to future Excessive Velocity Rail stations, the Merced Solar Star reported. The state additionally hopes to take over zoning authority in these zones.
The tax and zoning proposals have been a part of a brand new 2026 Draft Enterprise Plan that was delayed after fiscal watchdogs ripped it to shreds, warning it failed to satisfy authorized necessities.
The plan to nip native taxes didn’t sit nicely with the Central Valley mayors, who included Merced’s Mathew Serratto, Bakerfield’s Karen Goh, Hanford’s Mark Kairis and Stockton’s Christina Fugazi.
They mentioned the accountability for the troubled megaproject “lies with the state, not with native taxypayers.”
A letter from the California State Affiliation of Counties and different county representatives echoed the mayors’ considerations, calling the tax seize plan “inconsistent with a number of provisions of the California Structure.”
Native gross sales tax revenues are expressly protected for native governmental functions, and the
Legislature is “prohibited from reallocating or transferring these revenues,” the April 23 letter to Choudri learn.
The Excessive Velocity Rail Authority didn’t instantly reply to a request for remark.
A state analysts’ report final month warned of “a number of points” with the newest marketing strategy for the Excessive Velocity Rail, which may value as a lot as $231 billion with out revisions — together with eight distinct structural issues cited by analysts.
Considerations included unsure funding assumptions, a reliance on future coverage modifications and the altering scope of the undertaking.
“In our view, the draft plan’s strategy lacks transparency,” Helen Kerstine, an auditor within the Legislative Analyst’s Workplace, informed lawmakers at an April 28 listening to.
$14 billion has been spent on the long-delayed undertaking thus far, totally on land acquisitions and the development of assorted constructions within the Central Valley.
Gov. Gavin Newsom “celebrated” getting into the track-laying part earlier this 12 months, however critics have likened the constructions to a modern-day “Stonehenge.”
