Fact-Checking Berkeley’s Measure U Debate

Measure U has accountability provisions and they account for very little. Section 6 requires that proceeds be spent “only for the purposes specified,” held in a dedicated account, reported annually by the City Manager, reviewed yearly by two commissions, and audited by the City Auditor at least once every three years to confirm expenditures are “consistent with the intent of this Measure.” Every one of those tests runs against the measure’s own definition of what it funds — and that definition is “include, but are not limited to.”

The project list is expressly not binding. The measure recites that spending “should be guided by the City’s non-exhaustive list of proposed projects identified through the public input process,” then provides that “projects not identified in that process shall also be eligible” so long as they involve acquiring or improving real property for public infrastructure. An audit confirming consistency with that intent can be passed by nearly any capital project, which is what happened under T1: the audits found no fault while the portfolio was rewritten, projects were reduced to design-only, and the street-paving contribution was removed entirely.

Berkeley has written a stronger version. Measure FF (2020) names the Disaster and Fire Safety Commission as the citizens’ oversight committee for its proceeds. Measure U names no oversight committee; it assigns annual review to two existing commissions whose recommendations Council is free to disregard — as it did in September 2025, when both T1 reviewing commissions raised concerns, neither approved the changes, and Council adopted them on the consent calendar. FF’s own record shows a named committee is not sufficient: its commissioners reported in 2022 that they had received no spending plans or detailed budget through two budget cycles. It is still more than U provides.

The D and E dock replacement is a real T1 Phase 2 project, and it was part of the Council-approved 2020 Phase 2 list. But Ishii uses one ribbon cutting to support the much broader claim that T1 showed “those projects have been delivered.” The T1 record is substantially more complicated: projects were added, removed, reduced to design-only, or changed in scope, and numerous Phase 2 projects remained unfinished in 2026. Ishii herself later corrected the categorical claim during the audience Q&A: “I apologize if I said that all of those projects are done.”

The dock example also sits beside a particularly revealing later T1 reallocation. In September 2025, Council approved a single consent-calendar package that removed the remaining $3.95 million T1 contribution to annual street paving, limited or removed several other projects, and freed $6.283 million for redistribution. The same action added three new projects — F&G Dock Re-decking, the Adeline Area Dog Park & Landscaping, and the Santa Fe Trackbed to Park Conversion — with approximately $650,000 of the freed pool assigned to those additions. The street removal was the largest single source of the reallocated pool. The money was not traced dollar-for-dollar from paving to the docks; the defensible point is that street-paving bond capacity went out and new waterfront and park projects came in through the same reallocation action.

Ishii is citing as proof of delivery a category of project that got money because the promised one was taken away. Streets were named in the T1 ballot question; paving is what voters were sold. When new street funding arrived, Berkeley used it to pay for the paving voters had already bought with T1, and quietly moved the $6.75 million of bond money to projects voters never prioritized — the kind Ishii now cuts ribbons on.

Lomax was close on the total cost but understated the duration and slightly understated the total obligation. Berkeley’s Tax Rate Statement estimates approximately $610 million in total debt service if all $300 million is issued, with bond taxes continuing for roughly 40 years and the final collection projected in fiscal year 2066–67. The City assumes three $100 million issuances at five-year intervals beginning in 2027.

Lomax is right about Measure O’s narrow affordable-housing purpose, but he gives the wrong election year. Berkeley voters approved the $135 million Measure O affordable-housing bond in November 2018, not 2016. The ballot question expressly authorized bonds to create and preserve affordable housing for specified groups.

Measure U is a capital bond. It can finance acquisition, renovation, replacement, reconstruction and other improvements to real property, including capital work that addresses a deferred-maintenance problem. But the City’s own bond report says the program’s implementation resources are “not ongoing operations or routine maintenance,” and the measure says adequate maintenance funding for bond-financed improvements is expected to come from existing sources.

The scale is supported: Berkeley’s proposed FY2027–31 Capital Improvement Program identifies more than $2.1 billion in infrastructure and facilities needs. The City’s own term is “unfunded capital needs,” and its CIP uses “backlog” for the same quantity — language Berkeley has been using about itself for years, not a framing Lomax supplied. “Deficit” is his word and it is the wrong one: a deficit is a shortfall against an obligation, and no one has committed to funding this.

The figure’s history is its own finding. The March 2021 report put unfunded needs at $1.1 billion. The FY2023–27 CIP put them at $1.65 billion, and the FY2025–29 CIP repeated $1.65 billion unchanged — two budget cycles and $100 million of T1 bonds later, with the same number on the page. In December 2025, recommending this bond, staff told Council the needs were “greater than $1 billion.” The CIP now says $2.1 billion. A quantity that has been stated as $1.1B, $1.65B, “greater than $1 billion” and $2.1B by the same City is an estimate of a problem, not a measurement of one.

What the record does not establish is Lomax’s single cause — that Berkeley has the problem because it “built too much stuff.”

This is a causal theory, not a directly established fact in the records reviewed for this article. The City has documented inadequate maintenance and lifecycle funding, but the infrastructure backlog also includes aging assets, seismic and accessibility requirements, climate resilience, modernization, inflation, and proposed new or expanded work.

There is real overlap. Measure FF, approved in 2024, raises special parcel-tax revenue for street, sidewalk and pedestrian-path repair, repaving and reconstruction, along with safety and environmental improvements. Measure U also authorizes accessibility and infrastructure work and the City’s proposed-project materials include sidewalks. But Measure U is much broader than FF, covering fire and emergency facilities, parks and recreation, seismic work, civic facilities, climate resilience and other public infrastructure.

The City website does contain a public list of proposed projects, including fire-station work. But the legal measure does not bind the City to that list. Measure U expressly calls the public list “non-exhaustive” and says projects that were not identified in that process are also eligible if they fit the measure’s broad infrastructure purposes. The City also states that final project costs will be determined later and that it cannot guarantee the bonds will complete all needed improvements.

The Council resolution goes further for CEQA purposes: placing the financing measure on the ballot “does not involve any commitment to specific projects to be constructed with proceeds of the Bonds.” Individual projects remain subject to later approval.

The public-engagement claim is supported. Berkeley conducted a roughly six-month process that included commission meetings, focus groups, joint district meetings, survey research and public information about infrastructure priorities. The City says public feedback helped develop the proposed list.

The missing context is what that participation produced legally. It produced input into a non-exhaustive proposed list, not a voter-enforceable project schedule. City staff and departments also used an internal evaluation framework and Council direction to refine the project set.

The challenge is supported. Berkeley’s own T1 records show numerous Phase 2 projects still in progress during 2026, as well as projects completed only through design and a project list that had been modified over time. Ishii immediately responded: “I apologize if I said that all of those projects are done.”

This correction is consistent with the T1 record. The City’s T1 procedures expressly allowed the Council to add, remove or change projects, and the City did so. T1 projects were removed, reduced to design, renamed or rescoped, while other projects were added later.

Ishii did reconvene the Vision 2050 task force in February 2025, and its October 2025 report recommended additional funding and stronger infrastructure planning. The City’s Measure U report also expressly says the bond is informed by Vision 2050.

But the bond’s origin was broader than the task force alone. Council separately referred a potential fire-facility revenue measure in June 2025 and a recreation and community-facility measure in September 2025, while the task force work was ongoing. On December 2, 2025, Council considered the task-force report and potential 2026 ballot measures as separate agenda items.

This is how Proposition 13 works. The tax is levied on assessed value, which resets at purchase and then rises by at most 2% a year, so two identical houses on the same block carry different bills according to when they last sold. A recent buyer pays on a recent price; a long-held owner pays on an old one. The City estimates an average Measure U tax of about $22 per $100,000 of assessed value, with a projected peak near $35 per $100,000 — so the gap between neighbors scales with the gap in their assessments.

Renters are not exempt from it, they are just invisible in it. The bill goes to the owner, and Berkeley’s rent ordinance governs whether and how it reaches a tenant — but a tax on housing is ultimately borne by the people housed. Lomax’s point understates rather than overstates: the residents who pay the most per dollar of income are the ones who never see the bill.

The premise is incorrect. Measure U’s bond proceeds do not become unrestricted General Fund revenue. The measure requires that bond proceeds be used only for the purposes specified in the measure and deposited into an account created and held by the City. Bond proceeds may reimburse the General Fund or other funds for money the City advanced earlier for an eligible Measure U improvement, but that does not convert the bond into general-purpose revenue.

The audits cannot tell a voter the money went where it was supposed to go, because the measure does not say where it is supposed to go. Section 6 requires the City Auditor to confirm expenditures are “consistent with the intent of this Measure” — and that intent is the acquisition or improvement of real property for public infrastructure, from a project list the measure itself calls non-exhaustive, with unlisted projects expressly eligible. An audit can confirm every dollar was spent lawfully on capital work while none of it builds what the campaign described.

T1 is the test case, and Ishii chose it. Its audits found no fault. Over the same period the Phase 2 portfolio was rewritten, five projects were cut back to design only, three were removed, and the entire $6.75 million street-paving contribution was taken out and reallocated. Nothing in that record failed an audit. “Just like we did with Measure T1” is accurate and is the reason for concern.

The provisions themselves are real: an annual City Manager report, annual review by two commissions, and an audit at least once every three years. Ishii also let the audience member’s premise stand — bond proceeds do not go to the General Fund.

The City has identified opportunities to combine bond money with outside funding. But Measure U itself says some expected non-bond funds have not yet been secured and that the City cannot guarantee the bonds will be sufficient to complete all needed improvements.

Ishii’s qualification is therefore important: the City intends to pursue the proposed projects, but feasibility, outside funding, later approvals and changing costs can alter what ultimately gets built.

The first sentence is incorrect: Measure U bond proceeds do not become unrestricted General Fund money. They are restricted to the real-property infrastructure purposes authorized by the measure and must be held in a City account for those purposes.

But Lomax’s broader concern about project substitution is supported for a different reason. Measure U’s legal project categories are broad; its public project list is expressly non-exhaustive; projects not on that list remain eligible; specific project expenditures require later approvals; final costs are determined later; and the City cannot guarantee completion of all needed improvements.

Construction inflation and project-cost escalation are real risks, and Measure U itself says final costs will not be known until plans, bids and construction are further advanced. But Lomax’s $350 million and $400 million figures are predictions offered without a calculation in the debate. They should not be treated as established estimates.