Half-Cent Sales Tax Passes

Read at the bottom for updates from election night.

Fairfax voters overwhelmingly supported a controversial half-cent sales tax Tuesday night, passing with 64.55% of the vote. That percentage increased throughout the evening as more returns came in.

The local tax will increase Fairfax's sales tax to 8.5% - same as Novato and San Rafael - and raise just over $200,000 that will go to the town's general fund. Initially, the council considered putting a one percent sales tax on the ballot, but leaned toward the half-cent in order to reach a consensus from all the councilmembers and engender support from the and business community.

Bothly newly-elected councilmembers Larry Bragman (also the current Mayor) and Ryan O'Neil said they were nervous about the .

But voters supported both the local tax and the status quo council candidates Bragman and O'Neil.

"Voters rejected that debate," said O'Neil, who pointed out when he and Bragman and firefighters, whose association had donated to the Measure D campaign, walked the town and knocked on doors, people really understood the town was struggling and a local sales tax could help. "The money that's raised rally comes back to us."

The No on D campaign, backed by four prominent residents, drew numbers from past town audits to create charts and graphs demonstrating that the town, in fact, has taken in far more revenue than suggested.

Bragman said he was also worried that anger over the economy and the "dominant narrative" in politics right now might sway voters not to support the local tax.

"But voters had the wisdom and the courage to invest in the community," he said.

What do you think of the passed sales tax?

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The following updates are from election night:

Welcome to San Anselmo-Fairfax Patch’s Election Night update for the Fairfax Measure D sales tax.

It’s an exciting night for the supporters and opponents of the proposed half-cent sales tax, which has become the most controversial of the issues on tonight's local ballot.

This story will be updated and saved regularly until all precincts are reported by the Marin County registrar’s office. We’ll check in with both sides to hear how they’re feeling about everything, and try to upload photos from campaign parties around town as they are sent in. Anybody with a camera at one of those get-togethers can send shots to kellyd@patch.com or upload them directly to this story.

Check our for automatically updated results on all Marin races as soon as they come in to the registrar's office.

UPDATES

10:15 p.m.

Measure D, despite controversy intitially, continues to pull farther ahead with 64.5% of the votes in favor of the half-cent sales tax as 80% of the precincts report.

9:30 p.m.

With one precinct in Fairfax, or 20% reporting, Measure D is pulling ahead with 59% of the votes in support of the half-cent sales tax.

The measure only needs a simple majority.

8:55 p.m.

First results came in just after 8 p.m. with only mail-in votes counted and no precincts reporting.

Measure D, which needs only a simple majority, currently has 58.25% yes votes supporting the half-cent sales tax.

What do you think of the results so far?