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Mountain View’s decision to scrap plans to place a bond measure on the November ballot came after polls showed plummeting support for the potential revenue measure, according to public records obtained by the Voice.
The city hired polling firm EMC Research and political strategist Clifford Moss to gauge whether voters would back a $480-$650 million bond measure to fund public improvement projects. The bonds would have been paid back by levying a tax on properties in the city.
To pass at the ballot box, the general obligation bond measure would have needed two-thirds approval from voters. However, the polling results never showed support reaching that level, according to surveys that were conducted in three separate rounds over a period of five months.
In January, 61% of poll respondents initially said they would back a bond measure. By May, support sat at 52%, roughly 15 percentage points below the required threshold.
“In the current environment, a bond measure requiring two-thirds supermajority support does not appear feasible,” the consultants wrote in a June report.
Shortly afterwards, the city pivoted from the bond measure to a hotel tax. The City Council unanimously voted last month to place a transient occupancy tax increase on the November ballot. The measure only requires a simple majority to pass.
Softening support for a bond measure
In January, March and May, EMC Research and Clifford Moss conducted multilingual telephone, email and web surveys to reach likely voters, ultimately collecting a total of roughly 1,600 completed interviews across the three polls.
In January, 61% of those polled said they “definitely,” “probably” or would “lean” towards supporting a $650 million bond measure to fund infrastructure improvements like updating emergency response services, repairing streets and sidewalks and providing more affordable housing and parks. The poll had a margin of error of roughly four percentage points.
In March, 54% of polled voters registered support for a $650 million bond measure. The figure slightly increased – up to 56% – when the city proposed a $480 million bond measure. In a presentation to a subcommittee of city council members, EMC Research and Clifford Moss noted that the March survey was conducted after the start of the U.S. and Israel’s war with Iran and subsequent increases in gas prices.
In May, the figure dipped even lower with 52% of respondents backing a $495 million bond measure. That figure fell to 42% after respondents were exposed to opposition arguments. The margin of error was roughly five percentage points.
The results led EMC Research and Clifford Moss to conclude that a bond measure was not currently feasible. In a June report to the council subcommittee, the consultants also noted that while a majority of respondents were “still optimistic about the direction of Mountain View, pessimism has inched upward since the start of the year.”
In January, 75% of those polled said Mountain View was “going in the right direction,” while 23% felt the city was on the “wrong track.” In May, the figures changed to 69% and 26% respectively, according to the survey results.
A hotel tax
While the city decided to move forward with a measure to raise the hotel tax, that isn’t something EMC Research and Clifford Moss conducted polling on this year. Instead, research was conducted back in 2024, during the previous election cycle.
At the time, 53% of those polled supported an increase to the city’s hotel tax rate. The figure jumped to 61% after respondents received positive information about the initiative but fell to 49% after respondents received counter arguments, according to the consultant’s report.
Ultimately, Mountain View did not place a hotel tax on the ballot in 2024, instead opting to raise the city’s property transfer tax, which voters overwhelmingly approved. Now, the city is going back to the hotel tax with the hope that a simple majority will pass the initiative this November.
The city’s transient occupancy tax, which currently sits at 10%, is assessed based on per-room occupancies in local hotels and motels. The ballot measure would authorize the city to raise it to as high as 15%.
Currently, Mountain View has one of the lowest hotel tax rates in the region, according to a June city staff report. The last time voters increased the city’s hotel tax was in 1991, when they raised it from 8% to 10%. Bringing it up to 15% could add approximately $5.4 million annually to the city’s coffers.
The ballot language presented in the June staff report specifies that the money would go towards repairing city streets and sidewalks, improving police, fire and emergency response services, supporting affordable housing, adding new parks and “other general government services.”
