BALLOT MEASURE
SURVEY RESULTS
PDF VERSION AVAILABLE HERE:
The Path Forward.
What 705 of your neighbors said about how Tuolumne County should fund fire services, public safety, and long-term fiscal stability — and what it tells us about the measure that comes next.
The community is not anti-tax. It is anti-wasted-tax.
Two ballot measures have failed in three years. So before any third measure goes to voters, the Tuolumne County Citizens' Initiative did something different. We asked.
705 residents and business owners told us which of eight different revenue measures they would actually support. The results are unambiguous on what works, what doesn't, and what's possible — and they point the way to a measure that can win.
Five measures clear 60% support overall.
Strengthening short-term rental enforcement (79%), TOT increase (77%), 1% sales tax for fire (73%), insurance billing for EMS (67%), and a Tourism Business Improvement District (61%). The appetite for revenue is real — when the structure is right.
Voters reject reorganization. They support funding.
The only measure underwater across every segment is the County Fire Protection District (45%). Residents want existing fire services funded — they do not want them restructured.
Visitors paying — not residents — is the winning frame.
Every measure that hits 70%+ shifts cost to visitors or non-compliant operators. Measures that ask residents to fund the gap directly (vacancy taxes, fire district) all sit at or below 50%.
A citizens' initiative needs a simple majority, not 2/3.
Under California law, a special tax proposed via citizens' initiative passes with a simple majority — not the supermajority that defeated Measure Z. The path to a winning measure runs through citizens, not the Board ballot calendar.
Why this survey exists.
Tuolumne County is at a fiscal crossroads. A federal grant supporting fire services is expiring, creating a multi-million-dollar shortfall. The Board of Supervisors has already responded with cuts — including the closure of Station 56 in Soulsbyville/Crystal Falls/Cedar Ridge — and is evaluating new revenue mechanisms to fill the remaining gap.
In recent years, voters have been asked to approve broad sales tax increases — Measure X in 2022 and Measure Z in 2024 — and rejected both. Measure Z was defeated 57%–43% in November 2024.
Following the vote on Station 56, Supervisors indicated they would support a citizens' initiative to address the funding gap. This survey is the first step. It tested eight different revenue mechanisms — from sales tax dedicated to fire, to a Tourism Business Improvement District, to insurance billing for emergency medical services — and asked residents and business owners directly which they would support, oppose, or accept.
How to read this report
This is a self-selected online survey distributed through community channels, social media, and earned local media coverage. Findings are directional, not polling-grade. They are intended to inform measure selection and sequencing — not to forecast vote totals.
The survey ran for eight days, with data pulled and monitored throughout. Findings moved within ±2 points across consecutive waves — meaning the signal stabilized well before close. The dataset is large for a county of Tuolumne's size, geographically representative, and durable.
Throughout the report, two segments are compared: Citizens (respondents who did not select any industry tag) and Business Owners (respondents who self-identified as owning or operating a business in the County). These segments overlap with neither for some respondents.
Eight measures. Five winners.
The chart below shows where every tested measure landed, with each bar broken into Strongly Support, Support, Oppose, and Strongly Oppose. The line at 60% marks the threshold for community-backed implementation.
Five revenue measures cleared 60% support. Three did not. And exactly one — the County Fire Protection District — was underwater across every segment we measured.
What each option is — and what the community said.
Each measure is presented below in order of overall support. For every option, you'll see what it actually does in plain language, who pays, and how citizens and business owners diverged.
What a TBID could do — and why it needs more conversation first.
The Tourism Business Improvement District is the most strategically important — and most misunderstood — option on the survey. Citizens love it (65% favor). Business owners are split (44% favor). Under California law, businesses, not voters, decide whether one is formed.
What is a TBID?
A Tourism Business Improvement District is a self-assessment paid by tourism-related businesses on their gross revenues. The funds are locally controlled and can only be spent on programs that benefit the businesses paying the assessment — destination marketing, workforce housing, transportation, environmental stewardship, and shoulder-season programming.
Critically, TBID revenue is structurally protected from the County General Fund. Future Boards of Supervisors cannot redirect it. In a county where two ballot measures have already failed because voters didn't trust how tax dollars would be spent, this kind of structural lockbox matters.
Why this matters now
Here is what's not widely understood: tourism marketing has been receiving a shrinking share of TOT collections, even as visitors continue to pay TOT at the same rate. Tourism businesses are paying into the system without seeing those dollars come back to the destination marketing that drives demand to their doors.
A TBID would correct that imbalance. Mammoth Lakes generates approximately $6.7 million annually from its TBID. North Lake Tahoe generates around $6 million. For Tuolumne County, the estimated annual revenue is $2-5 million depending on which tourism sectors are included. Those funds are locally controlled, locally spent, and structurally protected.
This is not the County's first attempt at tourism revenue.
Several years ago, the County asked Visit Tuolumne County to form a Tourism Marketing District (TMD) — a structure focused exclusively on lodging properties. Lodging operators did not support it. The initiative fizzled, and tourism marketing has been stuck on the County's TOT line ever since.
A successful TBID will need to be different. The community is telling us how. The structure preference data below shows that "Lodging-Only" is no longer the favored design — and that the largest single bloc has not yet formed an opinion at all. That's where the work is.
Which businesses should pay?
If a TBID is formed, the most important design choice is which sectors are assessed. The survey asked. Here's what the community said:
The plurality answer — "Not sure" at 38% of all respondents — is itself the finding. The biggest single bloc on TBID structure has not yet formed an opinion. That's the audience for the engagement work that needs to happen before any TBID forms.
The recommendation on TBID
A TBID should not be the ballot measure that comes next. Citizens cannot form one — only the businesses subject to the assessment can. And business owners are still divided: 44% favor, 56% oppose. Pushing TBID formation now means asking 56% of business owners to vote against their own initial position.
Instead, TBID should be on a longer engagement track — a 6-month minimum education and dialogue effort with the business community. The data shows the receptive audience is there. Among business owners, support has climbed from 36% to 44% over the survey period — a 7-point movement in one direction across multiple data pulls. That's not noise. That's the beginning of a conversation worth having patiently.
14 areas. One county.
The survey reached every corner of Tuolumne County. Different communities responded differently — and where the geography splits is itself a finding.
Who responded, by area
How each area split on the five measures that matter most
The heat table below shows the percentage of respondents in each area who supported each measure. Greener = stronger support. Areas with fewer than 5 valid responses on a given measure are shown blank.
The community whose fire station is closing — Soulsbyville/Crystal Falls — supports fire revenue at exactly the same rate as the rest of the County. The pattern is countywide, not local.
What the geography tells us
Tourism-corridor areas (Jamestown, Sonora, Columbia, East Sonora) lead support for tourism-funded measures — TBID and TOT specifically. Residential areas (Soulsbyville, Tuolumne, Twain Harte) split harder against TBID. The 30-point swing on TBID from highest-support area to lowest is the largest geographic variance of any measure tested — and it mirrors who benefits economically from tourism dollars.
Fire funding, by contrast, is supported broadly across every area. Groveland clears 95%+ on the fire sales tax. Soulsbyville matches the County average at 74%. Even East Sonora, the lowest-support area for fire revenue, runs at 63% — still well above 50%. There is no community in this County that opposes fire funding.
The path to action — for citizens, businesses, and the Board of Supervisors.
The community has spoken with remarkable clarity. The recommendations below translate that signal into action — sequenced by who can move, how fast, and what the time pressure looks like.
Citizens file a ballot initiative for either a 1% sales tax dedicated to fire services, or a 1-2% TOT increase — and begin signature collection now.
Either of these is a viable path to ballot success. Both clear 70%+ overall. Both have the structural design — dedicated, locked, and clearly tied to a specific use — that voters told us was missing from Measures X and Z.
The strategic case for a citizens' initiative — not a Board-placed measure — is the vote threshold itself. Under California law (per the Upland decision and subsequent rulings), a special tax brought as a citizens' initiative requires only a simple majority to pass. This is the difference between a measure that passes and a measure that comes close.
If the priority is maximum revenue and broad community contribution: the 1% sales tax dedicated to fire services. Estimated $6 million annually. Citizens at 76%, business owners at 60%. This is how we fund Station 56 and continue expanding fire capacity and prevention in Tuolumne County.
If the priority is the cleanest "visitors pay" frame and lowest political resistance: the 1-2% TOT increase. Estimated $1-2.5 million annually. Citizens at 82%, business owners at 58%. Smaller revenue, but residents pay nothing directly — exactly the structural difference that builds trust after Measure Z.
Formalize STR enforcement with a registration license and annual fee.
Strengthening short-term rental enforcement was the highest-supported measure in the entire survey: 79% favor overall, including 67% of business owners. Strong supporters outnumber strong opponents by nearly four to one.
The County Tax Assessor's office has already begun this work — implementing TOT enforcement, adopting new software and tools to identify STRs, and expanding staff capacity for the effort. That work is the right direction.
The Board's next step is to make the process formal and durable: establish a mandatory STR registration license, set an annual renewal fee, codify audit authority, and define non-compliance penalties. This converts the Assessor's operational improvements into a permanent revenue floor that doesn't depend on staffing levels in any single fiscal year.
Move EMS insurance billing from "study" to operational policy.
Insurance billing for emergency medical services is the only measure in the survey where business owners support more strongly than the general public — 70% versus 67%. The constituency that typically pushes back hardest on revenue is leading on this one. There is no organized opposition to find.
The County is already discussing this. The Tuolumne County Fire Department has been considering user fees for emergency responses, with a CalFire study reportedly in progress. MyMotherLode reported on the discussion, but the current stage is not publicly clear. The Board should resolve where this stands and move to operational implementation.
CalFire estimates this option could generate up to $5 million annually for Tuolumne County — a figure substantially higher than the $500K–$2M generic California county range. At that scale, EMS billing is competitive with the dedicated 1% sales tax for total revenue impact. And the Board can authorize it without an election. This is how we fund Station 56 and continue expanding fire capacity and prevention — without asking voters for anything new.
Open a formal stakeholder engagement track on Tourism Business Improvement District formation.
TBID is not a ballot measure. It is a business-formation question. And right now, business owners are 44% favor, 56% oppose. The data also shows that opposition is softening — biz-owner support climbed from 36% to 44% over the survey period — but a TBID formation today would still fail the assessed-business vote.
The right move is sustained engagement: explain what a TBID actually does, why tourism marketing has been getting a shrinking share of TOT, what locally-controlled funds could mean for shoulder season and workforce housing, and what other Sierra destinations have built. This work also has to address the prior failed TMD attempt directly — what was different then, and why a different structure (broader than lodging-only) is what the community is signaling now.
Do not pursue a County Fire Protection District at this time.
This is the only measure underwater across every segment of the survey: 45% support overall, 47% citizens, 37% business owners. Strong opposition exceeds strong support — the only measure where that pattern holds.
The County's residents are clear: they want fire services funded, not restructured. Pursuing a Fire Protection District would split the political coalition that already exists for fire funding, would require two-thirds voter approval within district boundaries, and would consume political capital that should be invested in measures the community has already endorsed.
Hold the residential and commercial vacancy taxes.
Both vacancy tax options sit at or just below 50% support — 50% on residential, 52% on commercial. As special taxes, they would require either two-thirds voter approval (if Board-placed) or simple majority (if pursued via citizens' initiative under the Upland framework). Either path is contested, class-coded, and would require significant political capital for marginal margin.
These should not be priority items in this cycle. The STR enforcement track addresses some of the same housing-pressure concerns through a measure with much broader support.
Long-time residents. Homeowners. And the people who fight fires.
The shape of who responded matters as much as what they said. This appendix shows the demographic profile of the 705 people who weighed in — the verification behind every finding above.
Tenure: this is a survey of established Tuolumne County
Eight in ten respondents have lived in or been connected to the County for 11+ years. Over a third have been here all their lives. Newer arrivals are present but rare. The findings reflect how deeply rooted community members feel — not transient visitors.
Housing & life stage
Housing
Life stage
Industry & professional affiliations
Industry affiliations are multi-select. A single respondent can be a business owner who also operates an STR. The bars below show the share of all respondents who claim each affiliation.
Industry voice is well-represented in this dataset.
132 business owners. 39 tourism workers. 24 short-term rental operators. 47 fire/EMS/law enforcement professionals. 60 county or city government workers. The constituency that forms a TBID, the workers who run toward emergencies, and the public servants who execute Board policy all weighed in with statistical weight.
That means the industry-versus-citizen splits reported throughout this document are structurally sound — not artifacts of who happened to find the survey.
This is a community that knows what it wants. It just hasn't been asked the right way before.
705 people. Eight measures. Five clear winners. One direct path forward.
The work ahead is to translate this signal into action — to file the right citizens' initiative, to formalize the revenue actions the Board can take immediately, and to begin the longer conversation with the business community about what a TBID could be.
Two prior ballot measures failed because the County asked broadly without listening first. This time, the listening has happened. What comes next is the response.
PDF VERSION AVAILABLE HERE:
This survey is part of the SierraNOW Project, a nonpartisan research initiative conducted by Sierra Focus Media. All responses are confidential and will be used solely to inform a better understanding of rural communities and voter perspectives across California.
Sierra Focus Media 2026