New Fairfax council needs to find money to fix its roads – Marin Independent Journal

Fairfax was ranked as the city with the worst streets in Marin. That should send marching orders to the city council.

Particularly to newly elected council members Mike Ghiringhelli and Frank Egger, whose campaigns included defeating Measure J.

Sixty-two percent of the city’s voters supported the measure, an $18 million bond measure that required a two-thirds majority to pass.

That’s at least 62% of voters who agreed that the city needs to fix its streets.

However, Egger said a bond would be too expensive to repay at this point because of the long-term costs, including interest.

Ghiringhelli was more explicit. He says the city has enough money to repair its roads. They are budget priorities, he said, noting that the city spends too much on public relations and legal fees.

Both men, former mayors, came out of retirement to run for council.

Now it’s up to them to remedy the situation.

The defeat of Measure J was part of a multi-pronged rebuke from voters against the current council.

Two of the three incumbents up for re-election lost their seats and two City Council initiatives – the city’s new rent control law and converting the city clerk position to a permanent position – were rejected by voters.

Two former council members, Lew Tremaine and Ryan O’Neil, also opposed Measure J, saying the city’s voters had already voted twice to increase their local sales tax, with the city’s promise that a portion of the revenue would go toward redevelopment the streets of the city would flow.

Instead, they said, the council had “different spending priorities.”

Now the political table is set for Measure J opponents to prove they were right.

Ghiringhelli says, “We have the money.” He says the city can do the work for less money than it would cost if it issued a long-term bond.

Now that he’s back on council, he can prove it to his new colleagues and the city’s voters, who clearly want their road system repaired.

Egger questioned the timing of a bond measure and said the city should wait to see if economic conditions improve.

In the 2024 Local Road Condition Report, the Metropolitan Transportation Commission gave Fairfax’s roads a score of 54 on its 0 to 100 rating scale, a rating low enough to classify them as “at risk.”

Other Marin cities have worked to improve their scores.

One local success story is Larkspur, where voters fed up with potholed roads passed tax measures to fix their roads.

Larkspur promised its voters that the city would repair its streets. Keeping that promise helped convince voters to support a second tax measure.