Resisting the early signs of GOP-led opposition, the Hillsborough County Commission — including three Republicans — voted 5-2 last week to place a referendum on next November's ballot regarding a 1-cent sales tax increase for light rail.
There now remains just one more Commission vote (in March) before the measure will actually be placed on that ballot.
The three Republicans who voted in favor of the referendum — Mark Sharpe, Rose Ferlita and Chairman Ken Hagan — have been and probably will continue to be lobbied hard to vote against the measure. If just one lawmaker reverses course, the measure will never come before voters, since it must be approved by a supermajority.
A day before the vote, Eastern Hillsborough GOP power broker Sam Rashid went through the media to describe his displeasure with those light rail supporters. "How ironic," he wrote in the Tampa Tribune, "that Republicans, one of whom I first supported over 20 years ago, and one who pledged never to impose new taxes when he came seeking my assistance in running his first campaign several years ago, would be the leading proponents of a new tax that could siphon as much as $300 million per year from the residents of Hillsborough County."
He seemed to be warning of retribution for such a vote. Then again, Rashid's thesis seemed a bit fuzzy, since later in the same op-ed he wrote that "it is absolutely foolish to presume that the majority of voters will support one more tax." (If that's the case, why would he want to stop them from voting on it?)
Commissioner Mark Sharpe was undeterred. "It's amazing to me how fearful the opponents are," he told CL after the vote. "The opponents are saying, 'My god, don't even let the voters weigh in on transit.' Well, that's what this board has been doing on transit for the past 10, 20 years. Voting no and not giving the voters the opportunity."
Rashid and Florida Family Association head David Caton have been organizing opposition to the measure. Speaking before the board last week, Caton blasted the forecast by the Hillsborough Metropolitan Organization that the light rail system would serve 24,000 riders daily, calling such figures "grossly overstated."
But a few Hillsborough GOP citizens told the BOCC that they didn't subscribe to the notion that any new tax is anathema.
Marcella O'Steen praised the five commissioners — both Democrat and Republican — who supported the first vote on the measure last month (and did so again last Wednesday). Honoring Hagan, Ferlita and Sharpe for having the guts to buck the party, she said, "I realize that a target is on all of your backs."
Then, to demonstrate her own GOP bona fides, O'Steen unveiled a T-shirt that her husband had brought back from a "Tea-Party" held in Washington in September. "Not all Republicans are anti-tax, not for a worthy cause," she said.
Pam Clouston also said she was a Republican, and remarked that not all in her party are anti-tax "when it's for a good reason," but added that "we're anti-pork."
Commissioners Al Higginbotham and Jim Norman maintained their opposition. Higginbotham did find common cause with supporters of the measure in one respect, however; like them, he said he's been threatened with retribution — of, well, at least somebody voting against him next fall for his anti-rail stance.
Commissioners Ferlita and Hagan both said that they had issues with the composition of the proposal as it stands now, with Hagan going so far as to say he believed that the measure would lose if it were to go before the voters at this time. But both said it was about the voters having their say-so on the matter.
That sentiment was too much for Commissioner Norman. As the debate concluded, he angrily insisted that the board was approving a tax hike just by allowing it to go before the electorate.
Afterwards, Tampa Mayor Pam Iorio, wearing her purple power suit and watching the debate from the front row, dismissed Norman's comments. "Well, I mean, that's how he wants to frame it, and so everybody's going to frame it the way they best think it serves their purpose. The fact is that the voters ultimately decide."
The mayor, who along with Sharpe remains the most vocal public official in support of light rail, also took exception to Hagan's suggestion that the measure would lose today if it went before the voters.
"Sure, if the vote were held today and there hadn't been any campaign, you know, people wouldn't know what the plan is," she said. "The fact is, the election's going to be held 11 months from now. And there will be a campaign, and I'm very confident that when people know what the plan is and how much we plan to spend over the course of this century, I believe they're going to support this investment. So I'm very confident what the outcome will be, once we're able to get the information out there."
And Iorio rejected a comparison raised by St. Petersburg Times reporter Bill Varian, who pointed out that several commissioners paid a heavy price (i.e., they lost their re-election bids) for supporting the Community Investment Tax that went before voters in 1996.
The mayor countered by going back to the early '90s, when she was a member of the County Commission. At that time, she pointed out, the board voted for an indigent health care measure, an even bolder move than the one at hand because it was a vote to raise taxes directly — and every commissioner who voted for the tax hike was re-elected.
"You know, we've had it up to here with politicians who seem only to care about their political future and whether they're going to win the next office ... and what this [vote] represents is people who are willing to say, regardless ... this is the right thing to do, and by gosh we need more of that in this country."
After the vote in March, the question of whether to allow the public to weigh in on the matter will be academic. But don't expect the anti-rail critics to settle down.
