Hillsborough County residents will not get to vote on a referendum for a 15-year half-cent sales tax that would raise an estimated $117 million dollars per year for transportation.
County commissioners voted 4-3 against putting the referendum on the ballot after a three-hour public hearing Thursday, June 9.
In Plant City, that means losing out on an extra $2 million dollars per year that would be used for road resurfacing. Currently, the city allocates $1 million dollars per year for resurfacing, which allows the city to resurface about 3.1 miles of road.
Without the extra funding, it will take the City of Plant City 52 years to resurface all of the city’s roads. The extra $2 million dollars would have cut 52 years to 17 years.
City commissioners have said road issues are the biggest complaints they get from residents. Prior to the June 9 hearing, city commissioners expressed their support at a City Commission meeting for putting the referendum on the ballot to let voters decide.
“Hopefully they will let the people decide. That’s what government is all about,” Commissioner Mary Thomas Mathis said at the May 23 meeting.
But Plant City’s representative, District 4 Commissioner Stacy White, disagreed. He voted against putting the referendum on the ballot and was joined in his opposition by Commissioners Sandy Murman, Victor Crist and Al Higginbotham.
We the People
Before county commissioners made the vote, nearly 70 residents from Plant City and around Hillsborough County spoke out supporting and opposing the referendum.
Plant City business owner Yvonne Fry, who serves on the Hillsborough Commission on the Status of Women, spoke in favor of the proposed tax.
“Transportation options, access and affordability factors affect women and children in very different ways than men,” Fry said. “We have resolved to ask you to provide leadership on a comprehensive plan for our county and to ultimately let the voters decide on this important issue. We also ask for urgency of bringing a referendum to the ballot as our citizens, especially women, are negatively affected by our lack of options and planning.”
Plant City Economic Development Corp. President Jake Austin also spoke in favor of the tax.
“We have to do something, we have to act fast,” Austin said. As a millennial, he voiced the need for more diverse transportation options. “The issues are well documented, and the consensus is we have to do something.”
Still, other residents were opposed to the tax for what they considered to be a poorly laid-out plan.
“Commissioners, we don’t trust your tax hikes,” resident Tim Curtis said. “It’s not a game. There’s nothing funny about having to allocate (scarce resources) that we have right now.”
Sharon Calvert, the Tea Party Chair for Hillsborough County, told county commissioners they should be “hitting the reset button” on the transportation issue.
“I’m opposed,” Calvert said. “Because the county could fund … within the existing, growing budget. An unnecessary tax hike is only part of the problem. The problem is you don’t have a plan. You put the cart before the horse.”
Valrico resident Kathy Brown said she wanted to see existing problems fixed before seeing the county focus on bettering public transit.
“You have deliberately shorted the budget on transportation,” Brown said. “You’ve wasted our time and our money, and I’m mad about that. Transportation is a big need. We don’t need a choo-choo train, we need our roads fixed.”
The Decision
Though residents who spoke at the public hearing were nearly split down the middle on the tax issue, County Commissioners didn’t budge from their previous stances on the 30-year and 20-year plan for the tax.
“I take exemption to being told you lack leadership ability if you don’t support this tax,” Commissioner Stacy White
said. “It takes leadership to say no.”
“There is value in having this exchange,” Higginbotham said. “I see the body language and the passion.”
He still voted against putting the referendum on the ballot.
With the referendum defeated, Commissioners voted 4-3 to study a separate proposal by Murman, which includes conducting a transit study.
Contact Emily Topper at etopper@plantcityobserver.com.