TSPLOST: Regionalism gets run over by metro Atlanta voters Premium content from Atlanta Business Chronicle by Maria Saporta and Dave Williams, Contributing Writer and Staff Writer Political and business leaders throughout metro Atlanta worked together as never before to put a transportation sales tax on the July 31 ballot. From choosing the projects to be funded by the penny tax to waging the campaign to approve it, they acted regionally, despite diverse backgrounds and interests. But that regional mind-set didn’t resonate with voters, who overwhelmingly rejected the tax referendum, defeating it in all 10 metro counties.
“People think regionalism is good until they’re asked to pay for projects in somebody else’s neighborhood,” said Michael Leo Owens, a political science professor at Emory University. That most voters didn’t act out of regional interest was hardly surprising.
Special Purpose Local Option Sales Tax (SPLOST) votes to finance road improvements, schools or parks have appeared routinely on the ballots of individual counties, and they typically have won. But the July 31 TSPLOST marked the first time voters in metro Atlanta — or statewide, for that matter — have been asked to approve a sales tax that would be collected and spent across a multi-county region.
Not only did the referendum fail in Atlanta; It passed in only three of 12 regions across Georgia: the counties surrounding Augusta and Columbus and a huge swath of rural counties between Macon and Savannah.
“We don’t have a lot of practice in Georgia with these kind of votes,” said Otis White, president of Atlanta-based Civic Strategies Inc. and a longtime observer of the region’s economy. “Voters just weren’t willing to take that leap of faith.
”But White said the process that led to the referendum showed the Atlanta region could work together, even if the end result was failure. First of all, there were business and civic organizations, even some that had competed against each other in the past, working cooperatively throughout the metro area.
Second, the Regional Atlanta Transportation Roundtable showed that a diverse group of elected leaders from throughout the region could agree on a project list — an unprecedented level of cooperation in metro Atlanta.“That was the first test of us as a region,” said Michael Paris, president and CEO of the Council for Quality Growth, a Duluth-based nonprofit of business professionals focused on growth and development. Paris said he understood why metro Atlanta voters proved reluctant to embrace the region-first attitude that marked the roundtable’s work.“The concept of ‘When you fix something here, it really helps over there,’ is hard,” he said. “If you’re not out in the mix every day, you probably don’t have that same sense of how every piece helps every other piece.”While some of the region’s political and business leaders appeared anxious to repackage the project list and take a second shot at a referendum,
White called for a different approach.“When you lose this badly, you don’t go back to the voters,” he said. “You have to find some other way.”White suggested it probably will be up to the legislature to act. Former Atlanta Mayor Shirley Franklin said the process was flawed from the beginning because of the way the original bill was formulated and passed — giving local elected leaders say over what projects were picked.“It put politics ahead of a regional plan,” she said. “At least that’s what people felt. It was a list of projects. It wasn’t a regional plan.”Going forward, Franklin said it will be up to Gov. Nathan Deal to work on a regional transportation strategy.“The problem has to be solved with the governor’s leadership,” Franklin said. “I’ve always been in favor of a financing mechanism that is state-based rather than region-based. This region is very important to the state’s economic vitality, and the governor should bring leadership to this issue.”
On the day after the vote, Deal said he would continue working to improve transportation mobility, but through existing resources.“The voters of Georgia have spoken,” the governor said. “It’s certainly disappointing that we won’t have the resources to accomplish all the projects needed to get Georgians moving quicker, but it does force state officials, including myself, to focus all our attention on our most pressing needs.
”Deal singled out rebuilding the chronically gridlocked Georgia 400/Interstate 285 interchange for inclusion in what he promised would be a “need-to-do” transportation project list. But following the lopsided defeat of a metro Atlanta project list heavy with expensive transit improvements, he shut the door on further expansion of rail service in the foreseeable future.
Source:http://www.bizjournals.com/atlanta/printedition/2012/08/03/regionalism-gets-run-over-by-metro.html?page=all
TSPLOST: Business community’s ability to lead region called into question Date: Friday, August 3, 2012, 6:00am EDT - Last Modified: Thursday, August 2, 2012, 4:12pm EDT Maria Saporta
The effort to pass the regional transportation referendum also was a test for the Atlanta business community: Would it have the power and influence to get the region to pass the1 percent sales tax? For decades, the Atlanta business community has been credited for its ability to lead numerous initiatives — getting the 1996 Summer Olympic Games to leading the effort to change the state’s flag.
But the failure to get the Atlanta region to pass the transportation referendum has caused some soul-searching among business leaders and what it means to their ability to advance the region.“
The business community went all out for this,” said David Allman, a developer with Regent Partners LLC who also is chair of the Livable Communities Coalition and the Buckhead Community Improvement District. “It just shows you how balkanized our region is. It’s so dispersed that there’s no one entity or group of entities that can control the agenda.”
The business community ended up raising about $8 million for both its advertising and education campaigns aimed at getting voters to pass the tax.“I don’t think there’s anything we could have done differently that would have affected the outcome,” said Sam Williams, president of the Metro Atlanta Chamber. “I don’t think if we had had $10 million we could have moved the needle. We were hit by a tsunami.
”Dave Stockert, CEO of Post Properties Inc. and chair of Citizens for Transportation Mobility, said losing by a 2-1 vote was sobering.“We ran into a buzz saw — a deep, deep vein of voter distrust and fear,” Stockert said. “Our responsibility was to carry the message. It was a complicated issue, and we could not overcome this deep sense of distrust.”
Chris Clark, president of the Georgia Chamber of Commerce, which was instrumental in putting together the 11 campaigns outside metro Atlanta (which passed in three regions), called it a perfect storm.“It was the worst political climate in the worst economy in the middle of the summer during a presidential election year,” Clark said. “The odds were stacked against you.”From Clark’s perspective, the campaign actually unified the business community like never before.“The local chambers, the regional chambers, the business associations have come together and built a great coalition,” Clark said. “We have built a great coalition that has been really special. Win, lose or draw, that is a significant vehicle for us as we attack other big issues facing the state of Georgia.
”Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed praised business leaders for their efforts at the Atlanta Marriott Marquis on the evening of July 31 when the Untie Atlanta campaign conceded defeat.“I want to thank the business community in the city of Atlanta,” Reed said. “I don’t think there’s a better business community anywhere in the world.”The unprecedented investment by the business community in the referendum campaign raised some concern that companies may be reluctant to write big checks in the future for other efforts.
Stockert, however, said that companies are used to ups and downs in their businesses.“It certainly does not cause me to shy away,” he said. “I don’t have any doubt that when there’s the opportunity for us to work together as a business community, we will do it, and that will happen before you know it.”
In fact, Stockert said the issue of congestion, traffic and transportation investment is still “unsettled” in metro Atlanta.“We have got to deal with this issue, and we will deal with it,”
Stockert said. “It’s just going to take longer than if it had passed.
There’s going to be a process. Personally, I’m not ready to call it a day.”During the campaign, several business leaders did make numerous statements that seemed to raise the stakes of the referendum. In addition to repeatedly saying there was no Plan B, some business leaders said that if it failed, Atlanta should put up billboards saying we’re closed for business. During the closing session of the LINK trip to Washington, D.C., in April, Williams said that if the referendum didn’t pass, “we should just go to a funeral.”
But Stockert said that kind of hyperbole comes with the territory.“When you’re trying to communicate messages that are large and complex, you have to use strong language to convey the facts,” he said. On the morning after the referendum failed, Williams said it was important to “let the smoke clear” before trying to figure out how to proceed.“
This has bonded the business community of the region and the state like never before,” Williams said. “We have been out on the field of battle together and covered each other’s backs.”Otis White, president of Atlanta-based Civic Strategies, said he was struck how the Metro Atlanta Chamber, the Gwinnett Chamber of Commerce, the Cobb Chamber of Commerce and other local chambers had come together on this issue when they have competed in the past. Williams agreed.“We have got a hell of a coalition now,” Williams said. “Now we need to figure out how do we collectively and cooperatively market this city and bring business here.”Despite the unprecedented cooperation, White said that “until very, very late in the process, it seemed like there was no theme to this.”
Former Atlanta Mayor Shirley Franklin also said that part of the problem was in the messaging of the referendum. She said it was “flawed from the beginning” because of the way the project list was put together.“A unified plan would have resulted in a unified message. They had the structure. They had the good will in what they did,” Franklin said of the business community. “But for some reason voters didn’t buy it.”
For Allman, the implications of the negative vote “are significant,” especially when he thinks about what it means for his children and grandchildren.“You have to pick up the pieces,” Allman said. “But this is still a very big, vibrant city. The vote just shows how power is dispersed. There is no coalition of any kind that can carry the day.
Source: ”http://www.bizjournals.com/atlanta/print-edition/2012/08/03/business-communitys-ability-to-lead.html?ana=e_du_wknd&s=article_du&ed=2012-08-04&page=all
Comments:
The coalition of voters who were asked to pay for this
boondoggle and voted NO controlled the agenda and carried the day.
The gridlock is on Interstates and State Roads and the
State of Georgia is responsible for these. They should unclog the pinch points based
on “worst first”. The I-285 E ramp to GA
400 is a start.
The newly-energized chamber coalition can use its
new-found bonding to find private investors to fund Atlanta economic
development without taxpayer funds.
Regionalism needs to be repealed; it violates “home rule”. The Project List for Atlanta was a “train wreck” of road projects that didn’t relieve congestion, a public transit bail-out and unsustainable expansion and an economic development grab for tax funds. In short, it was another Obama Stimulus Package and we were being asked to pay the bill out of our own pockets.
Let’s close the Federal DOT and keep the gas tax money in the States, sell the 210 thousand acres of “wildlife preserves” owned by the State of Georgia and put it to productive use, repeal HB 277 and HB 1216 and kill regionalism and demand that tax dollars be used on the basics: roads, bridges, sewers and water. We want the HOV lanes returned to general use and the HOT lanes taken down.
Norb Leahy, Dunwoody GA Tea Party Leader
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