WALNUT CREEK, CA — Four measures on the November ballot actually touch Walnut Creek. Two are ours. One crosses five counties. One shows up only if your kids feed into Las Lomas.
Three of the four pass with a simple majority. The fourth needs two-thirds, which is a very different election.
The county publishes all fifteen measures in one document. Most belong to other cities. Clayton votes on its own sales tax, Concord on business licenses, Richmond on fire stations. None of it lands on a Walnut Creek ballot.
Here are the four you’ll see, in the order they hit your wallet.
The two Walnut Creek measures
Measure T is one sentence long. Shall the office of the City Treasurer be appointive? That is the whole thing.
Vote yes and the council appoints a treasurer the way it appoints a city attorney. Vote no and you keep electing one.
Ronald Cassano is the only candidate on the ballot for a job that could stop existing the moment the count is certified.
That’s not a knock on him. It’s just an odd corner of the ballot, and worth knowing before you’re standing in the booth.
Measure U is the heavy one. It redesignates 2.4 acres at the northeast corner of North California Boulevard and Ygnacio Valley Road from office uses to mixed use residential.
It goes further than a rezoning. The measure writes a new zoning district into the code: Mixed Use Residential Senior & Commercial. From there, the site would be limited to multifamily senior housing, primarily for people 55 and older, plus commercial uses that fit alongside it.
That’s a land use decision moving through the ballot box instead of the planning counter. We walked through the project behind it in September. It is 282 senior homes on ground that holds offices today, and the arguments have followed it since.
Both city measures need a majority. Neither raises a tax.
Measure RTM: five counties, one tax line
The regional transit measure is the one that’ll surprise people.
Half a cent gets added to the sales tax in Alameda, Contra Costa, San Mateo, and Santa Clara. San Francisco pays a full cent. Either way, fourteen years.
Countywide, that’s roughly $980 million a year. The money is aimed at BART, Caltrain, VTA, SamTrans, AC Transit, and Muni.
The ballot question is blunt about the stakes, which is rare. It opens like this:
“To prevent major service cuts to BART and other transit, avoid increased traffic, and reduce pollution.”
Measure RTM ballot question
The rest of the language covers fares, safety, pothole repair, and a set of audit requirements.
The threshold is the detail worth checking. It’s a majority overall, across all five counties combined, not county by county. Contra Costa alone can’t carry it or kill it.
You’ll pay it whether or not you ride. And you’ll pay double in San Francisco’s stores.
Measure W: $168 and only some ballots
Walnut Creek splits between two high school districts. Las Lomas sits on South Main, inside Acalanes Union. Northgate sits in Mt. Diablo Unified.
So Measure W shows up on the Acalanes side of town and nowhere else. If your assigned high school is Las Lomas, you vote on it. If it’s Northgate, you don’t.
The measure is a $168 parcel tax for eight years, with senior exemptions, raising about $6 million a year.
The district lists the money as teacher retention and manageable class sizes, plus advanced coursework in science, technology, engineering, math and the arts.
The pitch includes the line every California parcel tax uses: the funds can’t be taken by the State. There’s also citizen oversight and an independent audit.
Measure W needs two-thirds. That’s the number that decides this one, not the campaign.
Two-thirds is a different election
A majority means half plus one of the people who bothered. Two-thirds means you need the enthusiastic, not just the unopposed.
Three of the four clear at 50 percent plus one. Measure W doesn’t, and parcel taxes historically struggle there even in good years.
| Measure | What it does | Money | To pass |
|---|---|---|---|
| T · Walnut Creek | Makes the city treasurer an appointed office | None | Majority |
| U · Walnut Creek | Rezones 2.4 acres for senior housing | None | Majority |
| RTM · 5 counties | Transit funding, 14 years | 0.5% sales tax (1% in SF) | Majority overall |
| W · Acalanes | High school parcel tax, 8 years | $168 per parcel | Two-thirds |
Two-thirds is not a formality. It is a different election with a different electorate.
Worth saying plainly. A no vote on T isn’t a vote for Cassano. A yes vote on U isn’t a vote on the project’s design. These are structural questions wearing campaign signs.
Before you fill the bubble
The county’s measure list is the document to read if you want the language instead of the mailers. Every question above is quoted from it, word for word. Our full ballot guide covers the council race, the treasurer race, and the rest of what is down-ballot.
One administrative note worth having. The county runs this election for the city, the school districts, and the transit agencies, which is why a single county document carries all fifteen measures. Your city clerk certifies the local ones. The county prints them.
And the letters are assigned, not chosen. There is no deeper meaning to T or U. Someone at the elections office worked through the alphabet once the filings closed.
The dates that decide whether your vote counts all land before Election Day.
| Date | What happens |
|---|---|
| Oct. 30 – Nov. 2 | Regional early voting at Shadelands Art Center, Friday, Saturday, and Monday |
| Nov. 3 | Election Day. Ballots due by 8 p.m. |
| Nov. 10 | Deadline to pull campaign signs |
| Dec. 1 | New council members sworn in |
If you already mailed your ballot, you’re done. If it’s still on the kitchen counter under a stack of school flyers, it’s not.
One last thing. T and U are the only two on this ballot that Walnut Creek alone decides. Everything else is a decision you get a slice of.
That’s worth remembering when someone tells you the whole town voted for something. Half the time, the whole town didn’t get a say.
