Bend voters soundly thump 5-cent gas tax measure

After weeks of debating and a high-visibility, hard-fought campaign, Bend’s 5-cent gas tax proposal for road maintenance was being soundly defeated in mail ballots counted Tuesday night.

With most ballots counted by early Wednesday, the outcome was decisive — nearly 64 percent no (18,049 votes) to 36 percent yes (10,225). The ballot returns topped 57 percent, an impressive figure for a March, one-issue election and higher than some major elections have seen.

The city council sent the proposal to voters in a special election, despite a $70,000 cost, arguing it would get the revenue flowing quicker and work on potholes and bad streets sooner this summer. But foes said that was a waste of money and a political move to try to avoid the larger wave of voters in a May primary election.

The hard-fought campaign focused on whether the city needed more money to fix potholes or should be able to do so with available funds if priorities were changed.

Here’s the Deschutes County link for the latest results.

The city had estimated an $80 million backlog of unmet road needs and said a gas tax would ensure the many visitors help pay for the roads’ upkeep. The measure was estimated to generate $2.5 million a year to start catching up on those projects.

But opponents said the city had adequate revenue, and could count on more from a stronger recovery fueling room tax, property tax and other revenue sources. They said it was a matter of misplaced priorities — and a majority of voters appeared to agree.

Campaign finance reports filed with the secretary of state’s office showed the political action committee in support of the proposal had raised about $30,000 – including from several prominent developers – for its campaign and the opponents raised about $40,000, a large amount from fuel companies who would have had to collect the tax.

Coincidentally, that total campaign money raised of about $70,000 is roughly the same amount as what the city of Bend is paying for the one-issue special election, one of the many debate issues during the weeks leading up to the vote.

Supporters said it would have raised far more than that in revenue by getting going early, ahead of this year’s construction season. But foes said the March vote was a political maneuver to avoid the larger turnout of the upcoming May primary, with more conservative voters who would oppose the measure.

But no one can say it turned out to be a low-key campaign – it was quite high-profile, with numerous debates between opposing city councilors (Mayor Jim Clinton on the pro side, Victor Chudowsky a leading opponent) — and the ballot returns of more than 52 percent at last report top the countywide ballot returns in some primary elections.

Chudowsky said he was somewhat surprised by the lopsided margin of victory for gas tax opponents: “I thought it would be lower than that.”

“I think the big factor, there is a pretty strong undercurrent right now in Bend about how expensive it’s getting to live here, especially among older people,” he told NewsChannel 21. “Seniors and people with fixed incomes, just from personal experience and people coming up to me — they were very, very strongly against it.”

Gas tax supporter Peter Werner was puzzled by the sound rejection of the proposal.

“It does defy certain logic that for as little as it would be per household, it would generate quite a bit for the city to use for street preservation. It is somewhat baffling,” Werner said.

But Chudowsky said, “I regret that we went through this exercise. A lot of time, money and energy was expended on this.

“But on the plus side, people gave a strong message to the majority of the city council to watch taxation and watch spending,” he added.