SANDPOINT, Idaho — With more than $100 million in street and sidewalk improvements identified in the city’s transportation plan, Sandpoint officials are turning to residents for direction on how to prioritize those needs — and whether to pursue a dedicated funding mechanism to address them.
The Sandpoint 2026 Community Survey, now open to the public, is designed to gauge resident priorities for infrastructure investment as the City Council weighs whether to place a local option sales tax measure on the November ballot.
A Funding Gap Decades in the Making
Sandpoint’s adopted transportation plan identifies roughly $100 million in needed street and sidewalk repairs and improvements over the next 20 years — a figure that underscores just how far existing funding sources have fallen short. In the past two years, only two major street reconstruction projects have been completed or secured funding: Pine Street and Cedar Street. The limited pace of improvement has drawn attention from community leaders, with the publisher of a local newspaper recently noting the significance of the newly rebuilt Pine Street as a rare bright spot in an otherwise lagging infrastructure picture.
Mayor Jeremy Grimm, who served as the city’s planner from 2007 to 2015 before taking office as mayor in 2024, framed the survey as a foundational question for Sandpoint’s future. “If Sandpoint has an opportunity to make long-term investments in its infrastructure and community assets, what should those investments be?” Grimm said.
The survey is intended to help the City Council determine not just whether to proceed with a ballot measure, but also what specific projects and priorities residents want funded if such a measure moves forward.
How a Local Option Sales Tax Would Work
Idaho law provides a specific pathway for smaller resort communities to supplement their revenue with a voter-approved local option sales tax. Cities with populations under 10,000 that meet the resort city designation are eligible to ask voters whether to impose a temporary sales tax for defined purposes. Sandpoint qualifies under that threshold.
Any such measure, however, faces a significant legal hurdle: Idaho law requires a 60 percent supermajority for passage, not a simple majority. That requirement proved to be the deciding factor when Sandpoint voters last considered the question in 2024. That measure received just over 50 percent support — enough to show majority sentiment in favor, but not enough to clear the supermajority bar required under state law.
The narrow failure of the 2024 measure has prompted city officials to take a more deliberate approach this time around. Rather than simply resubmitting a similar question, the Council is soliciting direct community input first — seeking to understand which infrastructure investments would generate the broadest support and potentially push a future measure above the 60 percent threshold.
The gap between streets that are deteriorating and the city’s limited capacity to fund repairs is not a new problem in North Idaho. Communities across the region have grappled with aging road infrastructure and limited local revenue tools. For context on how the state is addressing similar infrastructure needs elsewhere, the Idaho Transportation Department has proposed replacing the aging US-2 bridge in Priest River with a modern structure that would include pedestrian access — a project that reflects the broader need for infrastructure investment throughout Bonner County.
What Comes Next
The City Council has not yet made a formal decision on whether to place a local option sales tax measure on the November 2026 ballot. The community survey represents the first step in that deliberation, with results expected to inform the Council’s discussion in the coming weeks.
Residents are encouraged to participate in the Sandpoint 2026 Community Survey, available at menti.com/also4zq3ed1d. The window for public input is time-sensitive given the ballot filing deadlines that would apply to any November measure.
If the Council opts to proceed and a measure ultimately reaches voters, it would need to surpass the 60 percent supermajority threshold — a bar that has tripped up similar efforts in the past and one that city leaders appear determined to approach more strategically this time around.