Commissioner Murman mentioned in this Tampa Tribune Editorial on transportation:
Editorial: A transportation mess
Published: February 26, 2016
Gridlock in Hillsborough County is not confined to roads. It now extends to the government boardroom, where county leaders can’t agree on a plan to help relieve the mess that residents, commuters and visitors endure every day.
This is not leadership.
And time is getting short.
If there is any hope to start addressing this crisis on local roads, highways and streets sooner rather than later, county officials better reach a consensus soon. The November elections — the perfect opportunity to allow voters to decide on a proposed half-cent sales tax increase — are approaching fast.
It is disheartening that the entire county commission is not rallying around the Go Hillsborough transportation plan.
The proposal, which includes a half-cent sales tax increase, is community-driven and has been fully vetted by a panel of county and municipal officials.
It has been a two-year process — and far from superficial.
Go Hillsborough would get the county of more than 1 million residents moving on addressing critical transportation issues that are hurting the economy and our quality of life.
Yet Commissioner Sandy Murman has presented her own plan, which focuses on increasing the gasoline tax — just a drop in the bucket for all the county’s transportation needs.
And as the Tribune’s Mike Salinero reported, Commissioner Kevin Beckner on Wednesday floated yet another, questioning the 30-year life of the proposed half-cent sales tax included in Go Hillsborough.
Beckner proposes reducing it to 10 years — a move that would hurt the ability to obtain federal dollars for other projects — and allocating more money in the plan for mass transit.
Beckner’s and Murman’s plans both include mobility fees that would require developers to pay a greater share of transportation costs, something the commission must adopt before asking anymore from taxpayers. But their plans would not do nearly enough to pull Hillsborough out of its transportation morass.
This lack of consensus is undermining Go Hillsborough and sending a bad message to voters. If the county’s elected board can’t agree, how can voters have the confidence to give Go Hillsborough the backing it deserves?
Hillsborough is facing a massive transportation deficit — well over $9 billion. Without a funding source, the deficit will continue to grow as more people move to the county, and the Tampa area will continue to fall behind other regions with modern transportation networks.
Commissioner Ken Hagan perfectly summed up the clumsiness of it all:
“We spent nearly three years illustrating our enormous transportation deficit and the dire straits of our transportation network,” Hagan said at Wednesday’s meeting. “We are weeks away from scheduling a referendum, and we are still chasing our tails.”
This madness needs to stop.
Go Hillsborough is not a perfect plan, but it is a viable start, one that addresses both road and mass transit needs. The commission needs to put it on the November ballot and then commit to a mobility fee.
