Marin County voters will decide this November whether to tax every improved parcel in the Marin Healthcare District for the next 30 years to help rebuild aging hospital facilities at MarinHealth Medical Center in Greenbrae. Measure CC, headed for the November 3, 2026 ballot, would charge property owners 14 cents per square foot of improved building area, raising an estimated $12.4 million in its first year and roughly $372 million over three decades.
The measure, as reported by the Marin Independent Journal, would fund expanded and upgraded emergency, intensive care, and other medical facilities at the hospital, along with required earthquake safety upgrades. The Marin Healthcare District covers most of Marin County. Because the measure was placed on the ballot through a citizen initiative rather than by the district board, it needs only a simple majority to pass rather than the two-thirds supermajority typically required for special taxes.
That ability to propose taxes through a citizen initiative traces back to a 2017 California Supreme Court decision, California Cannabis Coalition v. City of Upland, which addressed the constitutional power to propose taxes by initiative, according to a summary from the UC Davis School of Law. The measure’s use of a citizen initiative and its spending provisions are part of the debate.
Why the Redwood Pavilion Is on Borrowed Time
At the center of the campaign is the Redwood Pavilion, a 120-patient-bed building built in 1952 on the MarinHealth campus. Under regulations enforced by the California Department of Health Care Access and Information, some general acute care hospital buildings must stop inpatient acute care operations by January 1, 2030, according to the California Department of Health Care Access and Information. That deadline is central to the measure’s case…