Filed under: Campaign, Economic Stimulus, Ethics, Tampa Choo-Choo, Transportation, Voter Support | Tags: Bus rapid transit, County Commission, Downtown Tampa, HART, Hillsborough Area Regional Transit Authority, Hillsborough County Florida, Ken Hagan, Public transport, Sales tax, Tampa Choo-Choo, Tampa light-rail, Tax
Uh, come on. You can trust ME.
The news never ends about Transportation Task Force chair Mr. Ken Hagan (R) who is running for a county-wide seat on the County Board of Commissioners.
This time the news is that Hagan, oops forgot to look out for $40 MILLION he caused the county to borrow in 2008 against the last sales tax increase. Read the News Channel 8 story. The money, earmarked to fund a HART BRT project has been just sitting around, while taxpayers pay the interest on that loan, estimated to be over one and a half MILLION dollars each year. HART is now scrambling to spend it before they have to give (have it taken) back to The County.
The BRT program deserves a look-see. BRT stands for Bus Rapid Transit. This is one of the most expensive modes of public transportation, second only to rail. Much more expensive than POB; Plain Old Bus service.
So, where is (was) this BRT scheduled to be built? Would you believe a few blocks away from where HART is also planning to build either another BRT line or a light-rail line? Yes boys and girls. The so-called critical north-south transit corridor to downtown ALREADY had money to build a sophisticated bus service, but wasn’t for some reason. So now HART is going to build competing transit lines in the same north-west corridor: one from the first tax increase, the second from the next tax increase.
What is that “some reason” why this north-south corridor route bus service was never pursued? Could it be that it was delayed so that ANOTHER sales tax increase could be muscled through on an unsuspecting public to pay for a Choo-Choo for Tampa?
The County and the City of Tampa, along with lawyers, consultants and developers have been working together on a scheme to use county taxpayer money to improve property values around downtown Tampa. They call it Transit Oriented Development (TOD). We should call it Tampa Oriented Development.
Why expensive light-rail instead of more cost-effective bus transit? The consultants and the lobby group Moving Hillsborough Forward determined that light-rail would have a bigger impact on Tampa property values than BRT or POB service. Plus, they found that riders would prefer to vote for a shiny new Choo-Choo than a stinky old bus. So what is the plan to get riders outside the corridors to the train stations? POB.
That $40 million is the only money that The County has given HART out of the $4 BILLION raised from the last sales tax increase. If public transportation was so important to them, Ken Hagan and the Transportation Task Force, why was only 1% of that tax used? Good question.
Hagan’s Transportation Task Force was all about property-value-enhancing rail for Tampa.
It was never about helping people get from one place to another.
If transportation was the important goal, better use of our $40 million would have been made, years ago.
Do we REALLY want to trust Commissioner Ken Hagan and HART with ANOTHER $180 MILLION per year, forever, to service the transportation needs of the tax-paying public?
Let the voters decide.
Filed under: Economic Stimulus, Ethics, Tampa Choo-Choo, Transportation | Tags: County Commission, Ken Hagan, Public transport, Sales tax, Tampa light-rail, Task force
Ken, your pants are on fire!
Can Commissioner Ken Hagan support a tax for rail, then not support a tax for rail and then support a tax for rail, and not lose his credibility in the process?
In Oct. 2006 Hagan moved to form a 23-member panel to explore light-rail possibilities for Tampa. This panel later became the Transportation Task Force. This Task Force worked closely with Tampa Mayor Pam Iorio to coordinate rail promotion efforts.
When Ken met with officials from other light-rail cities, he learned to focus public attention to non-transit components of the plan such as roads, trails and sidewalks.
At last night’s Forest Hills Neighborhood Association candidate forum, Ken bristled at one comment that the only District 5 candidate not supporting a sales tax increase was Jim Hosler and another comment that he (Hagan) was supporting the Choo-Choo for Tampa.
Ken, Ken, Ken. You chaired the Transportation Task Force and voted with it to recommend the Tampa Choo-Choo and the sales tax increase to fund it. You voted as Chairman of the Hillsborough Board of County Commissioners to put it on the ballot to “let the voters decide. You don’t share any “concerns” you have about The Plan, but you appear in MPO 2035 Plan videos supporting both the tax increase and the light-rail project, calling it instead, “transit oriented development”.
The only “transit oriented development” plan being considered for Hillsborough County is the MPO 2035 Long Range Transportation Plan that includes a Choo-Choo for Tampa
and a sales tax increase of 14% to pay for it.
Commissioner Hagan, you can change your position and you can change your words, but you cannot change your stripes. A half-truth will always be a full-lie.
Obfuscation = Mendacity
Let the voters decide.
Filed under: Economic Stimulus, Tampa Choo-Choo, Transportation | Tags: County Commission, Hillsborough County Florida, Ken Hagan, Public transport, Sales tax, Tampa light-rail, Tax
NO NEW TAXES!
Janet Zink of the SP Times is on the right track with the transit tax. How is it not “advocating” when the only information that comes out of The County is happy-talk about the wonders that the transit tax will bring? The BOCC is hiding behind HART and the MPO. Every County Commissioner, especially Ken Hagan who chaired the Transportation Task Force (for almost 4 years) has a fiduciary responsibility to educate the public about any possible negative consequences of this sales tax increase. How else can he say “Let the voters decide.”?
Voters don’t know what they don’t know. Most voters only know what they are told. The full weight of The County and Moving Hillsborough Forward are devoted to getting this transit tax passed. Have you carefully read and evaluated the entire MPO 2035 Long Range Transit Plan? Not many county residents have.
The Metropolitan Planning Organization MPO), Hillsborough Area Regional Transit Authority (HART) and the million-dollar Moving Hillsborough Forward (MHF) do not talk about how much the sales tax increase will impact Hillsborough businesses. Rents, leases, repairs and gasoline will all cost more. Either the business owner absorbs the added costs or they pass them along to consumers, who then will have to pay the added business tax along with their own sales tax increase.
MPO does not even talk about how much the tax increase will cost business; only the cost to the average family.
MPO does not talk about the $91 taxpayers will be forced to pay for every $9 round-trip ticket rail riders will buy.
MPO does not guarantee that all of the enhancements to bus service will continue if the ridership does not justify it. There is nothing to prevent all of the transit money to be allocated to rail.
MPO does not talk about when the “tens of thousands” of new jobs will actually arrive. Except for consultants and attorneys who will benefit immediately, regardless, jobs for the common man and woman will come only after the rail project is completed and then only after business expand or locate near rail stations. Likely the new jobs will be mostly retail, restaurant and hotel workers. Hardly good-paying jobs.
MPO does not talk about where the rail stations will be located, even though they have identified a handful of possible routes.
MPO does not talk about how someone would get to a rail line running along the side of 275.
MPO does not talk about where rail riders would park or how much that would likely cost.
MPO does not talk about what they will do if federal, state and existing local taxes do not become available.
MPO does not talk about what they will do if CSX does not give them a sweetheart deal on right of way.
MPO doesn’t talk about the transit tax never going away and that our children will still be paying long after we are gone.
MPO does not talk about how many bags of groceries a transit rider can comfortably handle.
MPO does not talk about how many supermarkets or shopping malls are located immediately near the rail stations. Riders may be forced to shop at small neighborhood shops which charge more for the same goods.
MPO does not talk about which road projects will be completed in what order. There is nothing to prevent them from spending all the road money to enhance rail access and crossings in Tampa.
MPO does not talk about how many motorists could actually give up their autos in order to save the yearly $9,000 associated costs.
MPO does not talk about incentives or zoning restrictions that will also be needed to attract business development along the rail lines, as most other cities discovered.
MPO does not talk about the wisdom of a new, very big tax increase in the middle of a recession.
Buried deep in the addendum of the MPO plan, it does say that even with a $19 BILLION transit “investment”, in 2035 it will still take half as much time to drive from South Shore to the airport or to USF/VA Hospital/Moffitt than it would to take public transit.
“Investment” by the way is money (or other resources) spent anticipating a greater return. MPO says this tax increase will “subsidize” the cost to the end-user. You have to ask, is it worth it to the vast majority of taxpayers to subsidize a few, mostly Tampa riders? Really, what is in it for them, and is it worth it?
MPO and the BOCC do not talk about moving the vote back to 2012, after more details are worked out and possibly more Hillsborough residents get off employment and back to work. No new transit jobs will be created before 2012 (or 2015). We need jobs NOW! They do not talk about how those hundreds of millions of new tax dollars could be spent instead to help with job creation NOW!
It appears that the transit plan is squarely aimed at making it easier to get around the City of Tampa, but not easier to get to Tampa from the rest of the county. It is clearly aimed at making Tampa wealthier at the expense of the residents of unincorporated Hillsborough.
I may be wrong about this, but if I am, where is the “education” from The County on all these concerns?
Is it brain-wash or white-wash?
Let the voters decide.
"Let the voters decide" 