Vote No on Measure Q

The city says it needs revenue — but nothing in Measure Q requires the money to fund public safety. It is a general tax. If the council's priorities change next year, the money follows the council, not the ballot title. Marina pursued this tax after a facilities bond measure failed in 2024; city officials have publicly discussed using new revenue to fund city facilities.

If public safety truly needs dedicated funding, the city can put a special tax on the ballot with legally binding restrictions — and make its case to voters honestly.

7% of your combined electricity, gas, water, and telephone bills, every month. For a household paying $400/month across those utilities, that's roughly $28/month — about $336 a year — on top of the utility rate increases we already face. Businesses pay it too, and those costs get passed on in local prices.

Audits and disclosures are transparency, not restriction. They report where general-fund money went after it's spent. They give voters no legal power over where it goes. Any city's general fund is already subject to annual audits — this language adds the appearance of accountability without changing anything.

No. "Until ended by voters" means it is permanent unless residents fund and run a future campaign to repeal it. Most tax measures include a sunset date so voters can review whether the money was well spent. This one deliberately doesn't.

The measure promises reduced rates for low-income households, though qualifying thresholds and rates would be set later. Households above the qualifying line — including most working families, tradespeople, and fixed-income seniors just over the cutoff — pay the full 7%.

Yes — the Mercedes-Benz agreement is a matter of public record. In May 2025 the council approved sharing half of the city's 1% local sales tax with the dealership's owner, Unstoppable Automotive Group — expected to total about $5 million over seven years. Construction was required to begin by January 1, 2026; it didn't, and in April 2026 the council granted more time. Cities sometimes use tax-sharing to attract businesses — but voters deserve to weigh those choices against a new permanent tax on their own utility bills.

It got part of one — on paper. The 2008 Marina Station approvals reserved a parcel for a station if needed, and the development agreement as amended in 2022 makes Marina Station property owners fund 50% of a new station's operating costs (about $1.2 million a year) through a special-tax district the council formed in March 2026. What the city never secured is construction: its own staff report says the developer revenue "is not intended to pay for the construction of a new fire station."

So the city's own fiscal study assumes a station is needed once the project's population reaches 2,800 — around 2028–29 — while construction remains unfunded, unsited, and unscheduled. Cities with more resolve require developers of large projects to build such facilities outright. Marina settled for an operating subsidy and left the building to a future tax measure. This one.

It could have — it chose landscaping instead. Marina has formed special-tax districts (CFDs) for its big developments for two decades: CFD 2007-2 is titled, in the municipal code itself, "landscape and park maintenance"; CFD 2015-1 and CFD 2024-1 tax Dunes property owners to maintain the development's own landscaping, lighting, parks, and streets. None dedicates a dollar to fire or police.

That was a choice, not a limitation. The Mello-Roos Act — the state law behind every one of these districts — has always allowed CFD special taxes to fund fire protection services, and other California cities routinely require large developments to fund public safety this way. Marina proved it knew how to create perpetual special taxes; it just never pointed one at public safety until Marina Station in 2022, and even then only for half a future station's operating costs, with nothing for construction.

The result: the biggest cost of serving thousands of new homes — police and fire, nearly 40 percent of the General Fund — was left with no dedicated funding from the growth that created it. Now the city calls that a General Fund crisis and asks you to fill it with a permanent 7% utility tax. A wasted opportunity, repeated for twenty years, is not a reason to hand City Hall a blank check — it's a reason to demand the city start using the tools it already has.

The City of Marina — alongside Marina Coast Water District and the Monterey Peninsula Water Management District — has spent years litigating against CalAm's desalination project, hiring outside attorneys to do it. The results speak for themselves: the state Supreme Court declined to hear the challenge in 2019, and in May 2025 the Monterey County Superior Court issued its final decision rejecting the agencies' attempt to overturn the Coastal Commission's 2022 permit approvals.

Whatever you think of the desal project, the legal strategy has consumed millions of public dollars and failed to stop it. A general tax hands the same City Hall more money for the same losing fights — because nothing in Measure Q prevents it.

Yes: phase it. Build the fire station first — securing the site through development agreements, as cities across California routinely do — and add facilities as the city's growing tax base delivers more revenue each year. The city's own projections anticipate revenue rising as The Dunes, Sea Haven, and Marina Station build out. A voter-approved special tax, with binding restrictions and a sunset date, is also available any time the city wants to make a legally enforceable public safety commitment.

Only in June 2026 did the city name one — sort of. City messaging announced that a joint Police and Fire facility site is "confirmed" near California Avenue, should residents authorize the necessary funding, while the City Hall site was expressly deferred for future community engagement. No land has been purchased, and no design or construction schedule exists. The city's own 2026 figures put the three priority facilities at approximately $69.2 million, with about $19.3 million secured through grants, impact fees and other sources — leaving a roughly $50 million gap that the city projects will grow to about $58 million by the time construction could begin.

That matters more than it might sound. The city's case rests on response times — its own 2026 measure materials say Fire Department response times to some areas average nearly 10 minutes, double the five-minute national standard. But response time is determined by where the station is built, and a location named in a press release, contingent on this tax passing, is not a purchased site, a design, or a schedule.

You're being asked to approve a permanent tax for facilities with no purchased land, no design, and no construction date — funded by money the city isn't legally required to spend on the fire station at all.

Measure U was a $50 million general obligation bond on the November 2024 ballot, levying an average of about $54.74 per year per $100,000 of assessed value. It bundled a fire station, a police station, and a community center. It won 60 percent of the vote — a clear majority — but general obligation bonds require two-thirds, so it failed.

The council placed it on the ballot over a dissent from Mayor Bruce Delgado, who had argued for a smaller $20 million bond focused on a new fire station. Rather than return with the narrower, more specific measure, the city came back with a general tax that needs only 50 percent plus one — and this time, no legal requirement to spend the money on public safety at all.

Measure Q appears on the November 3, 2026 general election ballot for City of Marina voters. Ballots are mailed to all registered California voters. Check your registration and find drop-box and vote-center locations at the Monterey County Elections website (montereycountyelections.us).