The San Francisco Bay area made history in June 2016 by passing Measure AA, a wetland restoration parcel tax and the first ballot measure to include all nine counties.
Besides providing wildlife habitat and flood protection, the measure may hold lessons for future regional governance.
“We learned how much the region’s residents love the Bay,” said Save the Bay political director Paul Kumar, who helped run the Measure AA campaign. “We strongly identify it as a unique feature that unites us and gives the region identity.”
The groundwork for Measure AA was laid in 2008, when the state legislature created the San Francisco Bay Restoration Authority.
Staffed by the State Coastal Conservancy and the San Francisco Estuary Partnership since its inception, the Restoration Authority’s initial job was to persuade local voters to fund tidal marsh restoration along the shores of the Bay. “There were 36,000 acres [14,500 hectares] under public trust for restoration, but no reliable source of funds,” Kumar explained.