It's been nearly two years since the referendum on a transit tax to help fund the beginning of a light-rail line in Hillsborough County failed at the polls, and local leaders in Tampa show no inclination to bring the issue back anytime soon.
Despite criticism of how poorly the campaign was run in support of the measure, local officials have never forgotten that the measure did pass in Tampa and Temple Terrace, two of the county's three cities that are incorporated in Hillsborough (the other is Plant City).
But after reviewing a series of focus groups of local citizens on the 2010 referendum, Hillsborough County Metropolitan Planning Organization executive director Ray Chiaramonte told the HART board on Monday that it's "very unlikely a county wide referendum will pass" in the future.
Chiaramonte said that historically it's been cities that have approved such ballot measures, not counties, and he predicted that the regional sales tax measure in the 10-county Atlanta region would be rejected by the voters last week in Georgia (which it was, overwhelmingly).
This article appears in Aug 9-15, 2012.