I have supported public safety taxes before. In 2017, I was chairman of the Measure L Special Public Safety Tax campaign because I believed Madera County needed additional resources for fire protection, law enforcement and emergency response.
I also believed voters deserved to know what additional taxation intended to accomplish. I still believe both things today.
Measure U would increase the Transient Occupancy Tax on lodging in unincorporated Madera County from 9 percent to 11 percent. County estimates place the additional annual revenue at roughly $1.78 million to $1.85 million.
The tax is paid by guests staying in covered lodging and not imposed on residents simply because they live in Madera County. That is a legitimate argument in its favor: visitors who add to local service demand would contribute more toward providing those services.
But Measure U is a general tax. The additional revenue would enter the General Fund and would not be legally restricted to fire protection, the sheriff’s office, prosecution, emergency medical services or any other specific purpose.
My objection is not that legal structure. My objection is that the county has never given voters a meaningful public investment plan explaining what this recurring revenue is intended to buy.
The proposal first came before the board of supervisors in June. By June 16, the board had acted to place it on the November ballot. Additional election actions followed in July.
Yet months later, voters have now entered the vote-by-mail period still without a public investment plan identifying staffing goals, equipment priorities, implementation schedules or measurable outcomes.
The fact that Measure U is a general tax does not prevent the Board from stating its intended priorities. It could identify what it hopes to accomplish, publish approximate costs, establish annual reporting and tell voters how success will be measured.
In August, I presented the board of supervisors with an illustrative spending plan for enhanced public safety in Madera County. Its purpose was not to dictate how Measure U revenue should be spent, but to demonstrate that specific priorities could be identified, realistic costs assigned and voters shown what approximately $1.8 million in new annual revenue could actually accomplish.
Oakhurst: The case for parity in fire protection
I tried to demonstrate that such a plan was possible by focusing attention on the extraordinary life-safety and property risks facing the Oakhurst community basin.
Oakhurst is Eastern Madera County’s principal commercial and tourism center. Its risks include hotels, multi-story hotels, multi-story multifamily residential occupancies, commercial buildings, short-term rentals, heavily traveled Highway 41, residential neighborhoods and severe wildland-urban-interface exposure.
Thousands of visitors add vehicles, lodging occupancy, recreation, medical emergencies and other demands on public safety services. Tourism is essential to the local economy, but it also increases the number of people and the value of property requiring protection.
Yet, Oakhurst Station 12 begins an emergency with only two career firefighters.
Oakhurst deserves parity in fire protection, including three firefighters and the availability of an aerial apparatus, similar to Station 8 serving the Chukchansi area.
That is not an extravagant request. It is a request for comparable front-line protection for the broader Oakhurst community basin.
The numbers show that it is affordable. Approximately $635,000 annually provides the staffing necessary for three-person, 24-hour coverage at Station 12. Approximately $260,000 annually finances an aerial apparatus for Oakhurst.
Together, approximately $895,000 in recurring annual cost represents roughly 48 to 50 percent of Measure U’s projected new annual revenue.
Even allowing approximately $200,000 in one-time, first-year equipment and outfitting costs, substantial revenue remains available for sheriff’s deputies, prosecutors and other county priorities.
If visitors are being asked to pay a higher lodging tax because tourism contributes to public-service demand, there should be a meaningful connection between that revenue and protection of the communities carrying much of that burden.
I never asked the board to adopt my plan. I asked the board to adopt a plan.
Instead, the board has declined to commit even to this kind of measurable improvement. Voters are being asked to approve the revenue first and trust future boards to determine later what additional services, if any, it will produce.
Outbound Yosemite: An $8.7 million question
On May 17, 2022, the board approved an economic development incentive associated with the Outbound Yosemite project under which 50 percent of the project’s Transient Occupancy Tax payments are returned for 25 years, with estimated incentive payments totaling approximately $8.7 million.
The county may have had legitimate economic development reasons for that decision, but the contrast deserves an explanation.
If lodging-tax revenue is now important enough to justify asking visitors throughout unincorporated Madera County to pay a higher rate, how should voters reconcile that with returning millions of dollars in future lodging-tax revenue to one development?
Accountability: The audit question
Before Auditor-Controller David Richstone prepared the fiscal impact statement required for Measure U, I asked whether the county’s existing Transient Occupancy Tax program had been audited or reviewed for collections and expenditures.
Based on that conversation, my understanding was that during his first four-year term, he had not conducted such a review.
That does not mean money is missing or taxes are being improperly collected. It means that before increasing a tax, asking whether the existing tax is being fully collected, properly monitored and transparently accounted for is hardly unreasonable.
Supporters of Measure U reasonably argue that the county already devotes substantial discretionary funding to public safety and that elected officials need flexibility. Flexibility matters. But flexibility and accountability are not opposites. Existing spending does not tell voters what new money will accomplish.
I have spent years advocating for stronger public safety in Madera County, and that will not end with this election. Measure U could provide meaningful new resources. What it still does not provide is a clear statement of what those resources will accomplish.
In 2017, I supported a public-safety tax because I believed additional revenue should be connected to identifiable public-safety objectives. In 2026, I am asking for the same basic standard: tell the public what the money is intended to accomplish, establish a way to measure the results and then ask voters for their support.
The county has told voters how much Measure U will collect. It should be equally clear about what it intends to deliver.
William J. Ritchey of Raymond is a Certified Registered nurse anesthetist with decades of emergency and trauma experience. He served Madera County as a paramedic beginning with its first graduating class in 1985 and has been active in county public-safety advocacy for the past 15 years.
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