Commissioner Murman quoted in this Tampa Tribune article on transportation:

Politics

No support seen, so tax for county transportation plan slashed

By Mike Salinero | Tribune Staff
Published: June 9, 2015

TAMPA — Hoping to bolster voter support for a sales tax referendum on transportation projects, Hillsborough County leaders plan to scale back a proposed tax increase to pay for them — from a cent on the dollar to half a cent.

County Administrator Mike Merrill and consultants with the Go Hillsborough transportation effort are expected to recommend the half-cent option Thursday to the county’s Transportation Policy Leadership Group, according to sources who have talked to Merrill. He could not be reached for comment.

County Commissioner Sandy Murman, a member of the leadership group, said the decision to go for a half-cent tax increase was based on polling and comments made at Go Hillsborough public meetings, telephone town halls, and other surveys.

“I do believe from the polling survey and other information it looks definitely like one cent is off the table,” said Murman, who was briefed on the recommendation by Merrill on Tuesday. “It doesn’t look like it would pass.”

Merrill and the consultants are also expected to recommend that, should the sales tax pass, 60 percent of the new revenue go towards building and maintaining roads and bridges. Thirty percent would go to mass transit and 10 percent to pedestrian and cycling trails.

Such a split is sure to upset pro-transit forces that pushed the county to create the Transportation Policy Leadership Group and to work toward creating transportation options.

One of the critics, Sierra Club member and county commission candidate Pat Kemp, said 30 percent of the proceeds from a half-cent sales tax would produce just $30 million a year for transit. That amount falls short of the money needed to double the fleet of buses for the Hillsborough Area Regional Transit agency — a goal county leaders had supported last year in leadership group meetings.

“That’s not a lot to do a lot with,” Kemp said.

Kent Bailey, chairman of the Tampa Bay Sierra Club, said the environmental group would have a hard time supporting a ballot measure based on the recommendation Merrill described to him. Such a plan, Bailey said, would amount to residents of densely populated urban areas subsidizing the cost of roads to far-flung subdivisions.

“It’s not fair to have taxpaying homeowners subsidizing new homes,” Bailey said.

Transit supporters also questioned how spending the bulk of new transportation money on roads fits with earlier goals of creating transit-oriented development and attracting younger, transit-friendly workers to the area. Tampa-area business groups have pushed for transportation options such as light rail and bus rapid transit.

“I think it’s more difficult for economic development experts to go to people around the country and say, ‘We have put only a certain amount of money into transit options,’” said Mike Suarez, Tampa City Council member, chairman of the HART board and a member of the policy leadership group. “If they’re saying we’ll give you a lane of road and that’s considered transit, I’m not sure I buy that.”

Political leaders, however, have to deal with political reality. With the memory of a failed transportation referendum in 2010 still fresh, members of the policy leadership group may embrace the consultants’ recommendations as the safest option. The county has an estimated $8 billion in unfunded transportation needs and no available source of money to meet those needs.

“The only possible revenue solution that puts a dent in that unfunded need is a sales tax. Like it or not, that is the fiscal reality,” said county Commissioner Ken Hagan, a member of the leadership group.

“But at same time, once you acknowledge that, it’s incumbent on the county leaders to recommend and ultimately support a plan that’s not only necessary but politically palatable,” Hagan added. “It doesn’t do any good to come up with plan that gets defeated 60-40 at the polls.”

The Go Hillsborough consultants are scheduled to give their recommendations to the policy leadership group Thursday at 1:30 p.m. on the 26th floor of the Frederick B. Karl County Center.