SAN CLEMENTE, Calif. — The Pacific Ocean cruised to a decisive victory in San Clemente last week, defeating a 1% sales tax for sand by nearly two-to-one despite not appearing on the ballot, raising no money and limiting its campaign appearances to twice a day.
Measure M would have lifted the city's sales tax from 7.75% to 8.75% and raised about $15 million a year. Half was earmarked for the beaches, mostly for trucking in sand. The other half was for wildfire prevention in the hills above town, where a fire last month forced thousands to evacuate, and would have paid for work that includes the city's goat grazing program. Nearly two-thirds of voters said no, a clean sweep for the ocean, which eats the sand, and a setback for the goats, which eat everything else.
"I'm humbled," the Pacific said in a victory speech delivered at high tide against the pilings of the municipal pier. "I've worked this shoreline one grain at a time for longer than anyone here can remember. Tonight the people of San Clemente looked at my record and said, 'Finish the job.'" The ocean then withdrew, as is its custom, and returned about twelve hours later to say it again.
The result completed one of the more disciplined two-step maneuvers in recent municipal history. In 2024, a half-cent sand tax won 64.6% of the vote and failed, because it needed two-thirds. This year's measure needed only a simple majority, and about 64% of voters opposed it.
"People call this town divided, and that is unfair," said Dr. Nadine Brightwater, a senior fellow at the Institute for Things Everyone Agrees Someone Should Fund. "San Clemente supports a sand tax by 64 percent, on the condition that it cannot pass. The moment it could, the town supported the opposite by the same amount. You almost have to respect the symmetry."
Backers of the measure have long called the beaches the currency of the town. By declining to back that currency, analysts said, voters have taken San Clemente off the sand standard and left it to float, which is the original problem. The exchange rate closed Friday at one beach to zero.
Voters interviewed outside a taco stand on El Camino Real said the result had nothing to do with their feelings about the beach. "I love the beach. I'm at the beach right now, emotionally," said Doug Halvorsen, 58. "But everything costs more than it did a year ago, and now I'm being asked to buy sand. I was raised to believe sand is the one thing a beach comes with."
🏖️ The Sand Ledger
You are the city. You have a beach, a sand fund and four options. The tide comes in after every decision.
The game and its budget are invented. The $800,000 replenishment in 2024, both election results and the roughly 700,000 cubic yards are real.
Measure supporters say they understand the squeeze. Their thinking for a future attempt rests on state and federal officials lowering taxes first, leaving cities like San Clemente room to raise their own. City Hall watchers describe the strategy as asking Sacramento and Washington to charge less so that the town may charge more. A letter to that effect is said to have gone out to both capitals and, as a courtesy, to the tide. Only the tide has responded.
In the meantime, sand is on the way, for the train. County transportation officials last week approved placing roughly 700,000 cubic yards of it in San Clemente, most of it at the south end of town to shore up the coastal rail line that waves now routinely close. The tracks will soon have the best-funded beach in the city. Residents who wish to enjoy it are advised to buy a ticket to San Diego and sit by the window.
Other options remain on the table. Officials have floated piling up more boulders or building a long seawall, either of which would protect the beach from the ocean by replacing the beach, cutting off public access and speeding the loss of whatever sand is left. "It is a proven approach," Brightwater said. "You cannot lose what you have already covered in rocks."
Without the new revenue, the City Council is expected to make what backers call tough choices to reallocate funds. Department heads have reportedly begun preparing slide decks on why each is more essential than the ground.
To help readers settle the one question the election left open, the HuckFinn Graphics Desk has prepared a simple tool.
🪣 Pass The Bucket
Pick whoever you think should cover it. They will explain why it is someone else. A little sand spills each time the bucket changes hands.
The answers are invented. The question is real and remains open.
One idea with lingering support is a regional coalition, stretching from Los Angeles to San Diego, that would pool its money for a permanent dredger: a vessel that vacuums settled sand off the seabed and puts it back on land, working the coast from Malibu to Carlsbad. Engineers describe it as a Roomba for the sea floor, co-owned by every city that declined to buy its own sand and scheduled by committee. Reached for comment, the ocean said it welcomed the competition and noted that it, too, operates up and down the coast, at no charge.
Whatever is built, the sand itself has to be premium: not too fine and not too coarse. The ocean has no such standards and has accepted every grain it has ever been offered.
Near the pier, the 1968 lifeguard headquarters still stands, spared from relocation by an $800,000 replenishment in 2024. Lifeguards there say morale is good and that they have adapted to the changing shoreline by guarding the building.
At press time, the Pacific had declined a recount, thanked the voters who made it possible and announced it would seek another term on the same platform: twice a day, every day, whether or not anyone votes.
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