(Updated with new information below).
Orlando-based anti-tax crusader Doug Guetzloe, chairman of the "Ax the Tax" political committee that was involved in the movement to defeat the Hillsborough County transit tax in 2010, is about to be getting more involved in the effort to knock out the Greenlight Pinellas transit tax swap in Pinellas County.
Guetzloe says that he helped pay for one St. Pete Polls survey about Greenlight that came out about a month ago, and also financed the white paper recently published by Randal O'Toole, the Cato Institute public policy analyst who visited the Tampa Bay area last week to advocate against the Greenlight measure. But now he plans to get much more involved.
Ax The Tax will be sending a direct-mail piece to approximately 50,000 residents in Pinellas County urging them to oppose the measure in the next couple of weeks.
"We're going to do much more strategic and tactical political activities," Guetzloe told CL on Monday afternoon. He said that in addition to sending out mailers, he intends to put up messages on billboards and will also have volunteers offering up "Ax The Tax" yard signs to Greenlight opponents. "For the next 30 to 40 days, we're going to be very involved."
Barb Haselden, the head of No Tax for Tracks, the local group opposed to Greenlight Pinellas, said she wasn't aware that Guetzloe was going to be getting involved in the campaign. "I have no coordination with him. I know that he's done things in other communities," she said, referring to his group's opposition to transit tax measures across the state.
While saying that "We're winning right now without him," Haselden added that she welcomed anybody who wanted to get involved in opposing the measure.
Kyle Parks, a spokesman for Yes on Greenlight, the political action committee working to pass Greenlight Pinellas, remarked that Guetzloe resides in a city that now has SunRail, a commuter rail system. He said that it's important for Pinellas residents to make a decision based on the facts. "Our focus continues to be getting the word out about what the plan is," he tells CL. "The more people that we tell about it, the better we feel about it."
Doeg Guetzloe is a controversial figure. In 2011 he was jailed in connection with an election law violation case. And In 2012 he was was found guilty of two misdemeanor counts of willful failure to file tax returns.
Guetzloe is also getting involved in opposing the Polk County transit tax swap plan on the ballot there in November. Like the Greenlight Pinellas measure, the Polk County Commission has placed a one-cent sales tax on the ballot there, that would go for roads and public transportation. It's considered a swap because the plan calls for a decrease for property taxes for Polk County residents. Up until now, there has been no organized opposition to the My Ride plan.
(UPDATE: CL asked Guetzloe in a follow-up interview how he intends to pay for those mailers and billboards, since his political action committee financial reports show no activity. He tells CL, "We're in the process of collecting it right now.
We don't carry balances forward, it's all campaign to campaign. I've also put some money in that will show up as 'inkind' on the next report. The larger contributions and expenditures won't occur until after they are made in a couple of weeks.").
