After three-and-a-half hours of discussion, last week the Hillsborough County Commission voted 5-2 to put the one-cent sales tax referendum on transportation on this November's ballot. Now the voters will get to decide whether to raise the county's sales tax from 7 to 8 percent to begin construction on a light rail system, increase bus routes and improve roads,
But don't expect to be seeing ads extolling the initiative anytime soon.
David Singer, an attorney with the Tampa law office Holland & Knight, is the campaign coordinator for the light-rail advocacy group Moving Hillsborough Forward. He says that his group won't go on television until the fall, after it conducts a "listening tour" à la Hillary Clinton during her 2000 New York Senate campaign.
"The summer is really about getting our message out in a real grassroots way, and frankly listening to the community about their questions and concerns," Singer says.
Tampa-based Republican political consultant Adam Goodman is also working with Moving Hillsborough Forward. He's learned from internal research that the region is frustrated with the lack of progress in transportation over the past 25 years. Asked how he sells the public on raising taxes in this troubling economic climate, he says the key is that the money is an investment "in ourselves."
"A lot of people right now are frustrated with government and with politicians for one reason: They think they're throwing all their money out and not seeing it come back in meaningful ways that will benefit them." Goodman says the difference here is that "this money will go from us to us."
At last week's public hearing, Moving Hillsborough Forward won an initial PR victory by easily out-mobilizing their opponents; if these were rival gangs, or Thailand, we could say the green-shirted pro-rail crowd easily outnumbered the anti-rail contingent in red t-shirts.
One of the green shirts was 48-year-old Tampa native Pierre Matherin, who said he feared that Tampa will suffer in the 21st-century global economy without a modern transit system. He pointed toward misplaced priorities on the part of the county's elected officials. "We have an excellent football stadium, but we don't have a way of moving people around this county on a day-to-day basis, even though the stadium is only used, what, 10-20 times a year?" he asked.
Matherin works at Busch Gardens, and sees the stress parents undergo if they try to take their kids to the park without a car. "If we had more frequent service, better connections, it would benefit not just the residents, but visitors."
Tampa Tea Party member Michael Capria, 57, was one of several opponents at last week's hearing who used the phrase "rail to nowhere" in describing the sales tax for transit proposal.
When presented with the damning fact that the Tampa Bay area's transportation system merited a dead-last ranking (60th out of 60) in a recent Forbes magazine article, Capria chose to reject the evidence.
"I don't think we have the problem that they're making it out to be," he said. "This is a solution chasing a non-problem… you go to any city, you're going to have transportation problems, traffic problems." And like other critics, he pulls out a talking point that will be employed all summer long by opponents: that public transportation "doesn't pay for itself."
That line of criticism rankles one of the leading cheerleaders, Commissioner Mark Sharpe.
"The facts are transportation itself, unless it's a toll road, doesn't pay for itself," he says. "If the citizens had to pay for all the roads they use, they wouldn't ride, and they wouldn't drive their car." Sharpe says that government has always subsidized roads, and thus has created a misleading sense of what is free and what costs money. "Transit costs money and pays for itself more than a road pays for itself," he explains.
Although Sharpe has been the most prominent Republican in Hillsborough County advocating for the measure (and one of the leaders in the movement over all), Hillsborough resident Paul Farley wonders why the party isn't targeting Sharpe in a primary this August. "Should the Republican Party support this guy?" he asked bewilderingly. "I'll vote Democrat to get him out of there."
Farley is retired, and a Republican. He doesn't consider himself a member of the Tea Party, just a disgruntled citizen. The 1996 Community Investment Tax that paid for Malcolm Glazer's home for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers still rankles, 14 years later, as it does Matherin. "Remember that?" Farley virtually snarled. "People saw that and voted on it, not realizing that the Glazers were going to get 90 cents on the dollar. If they want to do something, they oughta repeal that."
Opposition certainly seems to be hardening in Republican party circles. At a GOP debate for the House District 57 seat last week, candidate Dana Young said, "It's irresponsible and arrogant of government to come back time and time again with their hand out to the taxpayers asking for more money for the latest idea du jour. This is a 14 percent tax rate, and we cannot afford it."
Gerald White is a community activist in Hillsborough County who's worked for Tampa Electric Company for 20 years. He's impressed by the backers of the rail proposal, saying that the advocates have created a process that has been open to the public. Speaking as a member of the black community, he said, "We're tired of walking, we're tired of sitting in the hot sun, waiting for the bus. Buses are not guaranteed. Routes can be changed, so we want some hard tracks done coming through the African-American community." He says nobody is really ready for a tax increase, but he thinks people are willing to support it if "it lays out a foundation for rail so they can really have a way to get around and get a way to work."
Tampa City Councilwoman Mary Mulhern has expressed concerns in the past few months that the campaign to pass the referendum was lagging behind in the race for public opinion. She spoke last week at the public hearing about her experiences without a car growing up in Chicago, and said that the lack of good public transit will be exacerbated in two years when the Republican National Convention comes to the St. Pete Times Forum.
"In 2012 their heroes are going to be here, and they're not going to be happy when they can't get downtown from the airport, when they can't get from one venue to the next," she speculated.
Rail critics like to compare the campaign for light rail to the recent incendiary health care debate, saying referendum supporters are "shoving it down our throats." But the comparison doesn't hold true: Hillsborough voters could very well defeat the rail proposal on first try later this year. Despite the many transportation challenges Hillsborough County faces, the question of whether the citizenry will want to raise their sales tax to the highest in Florida won't be answered until November 2nd.
This article appears in May 20-26, 2010.