This November, San Mateo County voters have a chance to do something few counties in California have done: write climate resilience directly into their charter. Greenbelt Alliance proudly endorses a YES vote on Measure L, the County’s Charter Amendment on Extreme Weather events, on the ballot.
Measure L would amend the preamble of the San Mateo County Charter to designate long-term resilience to extreme weather events, including fire, flood, wind, rain, heat, drought, and sea level rise, as a County priority.
Why It Matters
Most climate resilience commitments live in strategic plans, resolutions, or budget line items. Those tools matter, but they can be rewritten or quietly dropped by a future board with different priorities. A charter is different. It’s the County’s foundational governing document, the one that outlives every single Board of Supervisors, budget cycle, or election.
That’s what makes Measure L significant. It sets a precedent for both San Mateo County and for the rest of the state. Very few California counties have named climate resilience as an enumerated priority in their charter. If Measure L passes, San Mateo County will become a model other Bay Area counties can point to when making the case for similar charter language at home.
The measure’s emphasis on collaboration with cities, districts, and other public entities also matters in practice. San Mateo County’s extreme weather risks, coastal flooding in places like San Mateo and Half Moon Bay, wildfire in the western hillsides, and extreme heat inland do not stop at jurisdictional lines. A charter mandate for the county to work across those lines gives future resilience hubs, shoreline adaptation projects, and emergency preparedness efforts a clearer foundation to build on, rather than relying on goodwill between agencies.
Measure L does not create a new tax, program, or agency. It changes how the county defines its own priorities, at the level of its governance charter, in a way that is significantly harder for a future board to unwind than a policy or ordinance would be.
If you want to vote for climate resilience this November, vote YES on Measure L in San Mateo County.
