Commissioner Murman quoted in this Tampa Bay Times article on transportation:
Are Hillsborough commissioners on verge of consensus days before crucial transportation vote?
Friday, April 22, 2016 8:11pm
TAMPA — Just days before a critical vote, Hillsborough County commissioners say they’re confident they will pass a transportation sales tax increase for residents to consider in a November referendum.
But the scope of the tax could be considerably less than the 30-year, half-cent proposal that county staff, local political leaders and consultants have recommended.
That’s according to three commissioners — Kevin Beckner, Victor Crist and Sandy Murman — who have stood on or near the fence during the past several months of debate on Go Hillsborough, the county’s transportation initiative. They’re expected to vote on a plan after Wednesday’s public hearing.
“The consensus from what I hear in the community is a long-term tax plan is not going to pass in November,” Murman said Friday. “Something more reasonable may have a shot and it won’t divide the community.”
Even that position is a significant shift for Murman. In November, she opposed any sales tax increase and until recently was still pushing a package that included a 5-cent gas tax, the BP oil spill settlement and higher mobility fees on development to pay for roads and transit.
Now, Murman appears more closely aligned with Beckner and his proposal to send to voters a 10-year referendum that could be renewed each decade. On Friday, Beckner said he is willing to consider a 20-year tax hike, but not 30 years.
“A 30-year time frame is just an awfully long time frame for voters to weigh in again,” he said.
A half-cent sales tax increase, if approved by voters, is projected to bring in $117.5 million a year.
One option floated Friday is for commissioners to pass a shorter-term tax. In the meantime, as shovels start moving dirt, the Hillsborough Area Regional Transit Authority would conduct a countywide transit study and examine the feasibility of buying rail lines from CSX Transportation for commuter rail. With those studies in hand, the county would go back to voters in four years and ask for a longer, and maybe bigger, sales tax increase.
“By the time that information comes back to us, there is a pretty clear picture of how we integrate urban and suburban areas,” Murman said, “we have a clear picture of the cost and what we need for a good transit system to move people around in our community.”
But Commissioner Les Miller brushed that off: “What does that do for us in the meantime when the county’s roads are continuing to deteriorate?”
Miller also said a 10-year tax “gets us nothing” and would prevent Hillsborough from unlocking federal dollars. Miller, like Commissioner Ken Hagan, supports the 30-year, half-cent option.
Crist, for months an undecided swing vote, said he wants to get something done. But he preferred a compromise that could pass the commission 5-2, instead of a narrow 4-3 vote. Commissioners Stacy White and Al Higgingbotham will likely vote against any sales tax increase.
“For this to make it at the polls, the board is going to have to get behind it,” Crist said. “And if it barely squeaks through the board it may not squeak through the electorate.”
But anything less than 30 years would lose the support of one of the transportation initiative’s biggest cheerleaders: Tampa Mayor Bob Buckhorn.
Buckhorn and the Policy Leadership Group, an organization of elected leaders from the county and three cities (Tampa, Temple Terrace and Plant City), endorsed a 30-year, half-cent tax in November. That option was also recommended by County Administrator Mike Merrill and the group’s consultant, Parsons Brinckerhoff.
A 10- or 20-year tax would kill the rail system that would connect downtown Tampa to Tampa International Airport that the city plans to build with its share of the tax increase, Buckhorn said. Without a dedicated, 30-year revenue stream, he can’t get the bonding to make it affordable.
No train would significantly lessen the amount of money dedicated to transit in Go Hillsborough.
“If it’s a 10-year tax then they can count me out because I’m not going to waste my time,” Buckhorn said. “It doesn’t solve any of our needs, it wastes a lot of our time and political capital on an initiative not worth pursuing. At some point some of those commissioners are going to have to demonstrate political courage.”
The current half-cent proposal has stiff opposition from tea party Republicans — who say Go Hillsborough is a Trojan horse for rail — and, ironically, some Democrats and conservationists. The Democratic Party of Hillsborough County nearly voted last week to officially take a position against the 30-year, half-cent sales tax plan because it didn’t have enough transit. At the last minute, the vote was delayed a month.
Still, by any measure, last week was the best stretch in months for the controversial transportation plan.
Commissioners on Wednesday unanimously approved a $905 million list of transportation projects to complete in the next 10 years, including hundreds of intersection, road and sidewalk improvements, new and widened roads in suburban Hillsborough, bus rapid transit in Brandon and a ferry connecting MacDill Air Force Base and SouthShore.
And on Thursday the Greater Tampa Chamber of Commerce, the largest business group in the county, endorsed a half-cent sales tax increase — for at least 20 years.
Murman believes the commission is close to a consensus. Approving a project list was particularly important, she said, because it demonstrated the county has a plan and voters aren’t just handing over a blank check.
“We’ve done it before on tough subjects,” Murman said, “and I think we’ll do it again.”
