Supporters of seeing the Hillsborough County Commissioners approve ballot language for a one cent sales tax referendum on transportation could not be encouraged after a workshop held at the County Center on Wednesday.
Commissioners were presented with two different proposals to vote on that would be the actual 75 words that would appear before voters on the ballot to describe the tax in November. One measure (Plan B) would specifically support delineates a specific 75/25 breakdown between the monies from the tax going to rail/bus vs. roads. Measure A would give Commissioners more flexibility, and would put the 75/25 number in the Interlocal Agreement, but not include it in ballot language.
But Commissioner Rose Ferlita changed things up by crafting her own ballot language, which she referred to as Measure C, which would tweak the language slightly of Measure B.
Get that? Well, the proposal to accept Measure B went down to defeat, as commissioners tied 3-3 on accepting that language (Al Higginbotham was absent).
Tampa Mayor Pam Iorio, who was sitting in the audience, as she has at all BOCC discussions on the transit proposal, seemed to visibly shrink a bit when Commission Chairman Ken Hagan, who has supported previous votes to move the measure along, said he did not support the measure as it currently stands, and he agreed with Commissioner Jim Norman – a persistent critic of the plan- that it would go down to defeat at the polls.
Norman continued his verbal assault on the measure, saying he believes the measure will "go down in flames." He appeared to be trying to persuade his fellow Republicans (of whom there are 5 on the board) that a vote to put the measure before voters was in effect supporting it, prompting those Republicans to immediately respond, including rail supporter Mark Sharpe, who cited the CIT proposal in 1996 that Norman was a big proponent of.
Democrat Kevin White said at that time in the discussion that "I think the public deserves the opportunity to shoot this down in flames," hardly a ringing endorsement. But he then followed up by saying that that he thinks approval of the measure will create jobs and relieve traffic congestion in the county.
The BOCC will meet again next Wednesday to discuss the issue. They plan on having other commissioners review Commissioner Ferlita's proposal on ballot language, as well as hear about the new road projects that Lucia Garsys from the County's Planning and Infrastructure department has assembled.
This article appears in Mar 10-16, 2010.