A workshop was held in the Hillsborough County Center Monday afternoon regarding the proposed penny cent sales tax referendum on transportation that local officials are furiously working on to ultimately get ballot language approved later this month. The informal meeting was led by County Commissioner Mark Sharpe, with Tampa Mayor Pam Iorio, HART Executive Director David Armijo, along with members of TBARTA and the Tampa Bay Partnership participating.
Among the details hammered out was a proposal that will be brought before the Hillsborough County Board of County Commissioners regarding a new issue about the ballot language: whether or not to include the fact that there will be a 75/25 split between bus and rail projects vs. road projects.
Based upon a suggestion by Tampa Mayor Pam Iorio, County staff will prepare two versions to go before the Board on Wednesday - one measure will include the 75/25 split, the other will not. As was discussed earlier Monday at a HART board meeting, many board members believe that including the 75/25 split on the actual proposal takes away the flexibility from HART later on. But because they are aware that some County Commissioners might not like removing that language, a second 75 word mock ballot ordinance will be presented (this comes after the word "rail" was deleted and then re-inserted in the ballot language late last week).
Because the ballot language cannot go beyond 75 words, officials are obviously limited. Officials at both the Monday afternoon meeting, as well as HART members earlier, seemed to agree that the listing of "560 buses" that its in the current draft be omitted.
