California mayors in the Central Valley aren’t happy with a plan to dip into local taxes and zoning for the state’s long-delayed high speed rail projects — saying they’ll sue the state if it goes through with it.
Fresno Mayor Jerry Dyer and several other Central Valley leaders sent a scathing letter to High Speed Rail Authority CEO Ian Choudri calling a plan to “capture” local property and sales tax growth within a half-mile of future High Speed Rail stations “unconstitutional.”
The strongly worded letter dated April 23 called the plan a “legally dubious scheme” to snatch counties’ tax dollars and “sets a dangerous statewide precedent.”
The rail authority isn’t planning to raise taxes, but rather to take a portion of increased property and sales tax revenues near future High Speed Rail stations, the Merced Sun Star reported. The state also hopes to take over zoning authority in those zones.
The tax and zoning proposals were part of a new 2026 Draft Business Plan that was delayed after fiscal watchdogs ripped it to shreds, warning it failed to meet legal requirements.
The plan to nip local taxes didn’t sit well 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 said the responsibility for the troubled megaproject “lies with the state, not with local taxypayers.”
A letter from the California State Association of Counties and other county representatives echoed the mayors’ concerns, calling the tax capture plan “inconsistent with multiple provisions of the California Constitution.”
Local sales tax revenues are expressly protected for local governmental purposes, and the
Legislature is “prohibited from reallocating or transferring those revenues,” the April 23 letter to Choudri read.
The High Speed Rail Authority didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
A state analysts’ report last month warned of “several issues” with the latest business plan for the High Speed Rail, which could cost as much as $231 billion without revisions — including eight distinct structural problems cited by analysts.
Concerns included uncertain funding assumptions, a reliance on future policy changes and the changing scope of the project.
“In our view, the draft plan’s approach lacks transparency,” Helen Kerstine, an auditor in the Legislative Analyst’s Office, told lawmakers at an April 28 hearing.
$14 billion has been spent on the long-delayed project so far, mostly on land acquisitions and the construction of various structures in the Central Valley.
Gov. Gavin Newsom “celebrated” entering the track-laying phase earlier this year, but critics have likened the structures to a modern-day “Stonehenge.”
