Republican Victor Crist is facing one of the biggest decisions of his political career in the coming months, as an interesting new year awaits the District 2 County Commissioner.
Crist appears to hold the fate of the Go Hillsborough transportation initiative in his hands. The decision comes down to either siding with commissioners Kevin Beckner (D), Ken Hagan (R) and Les Miller (D), who all back a tax referendum (as does Tampa mayor Bob Buckhorn) to finance the project’s plans for road, bridge and transit improvements, or going the route Republican commissioners Al Higginbotham, Sandy Murman and Stacy White favor, which is finding other ways to pay for the project that won’t involve voters.
Crist may be the one breaking a 3-3 stalemate to push the referendum forward sometime early next year.
“I’m going to make a decision not from emotion or politics,’’ says Crist, who also serves as chairman of the Hillsborough County Public Transportation Commission (PTC). “This is going to be a tough one either way I go. No matter what, half the world is going to be angry at me. It’s one of those things, you’re darned if you do and darned if you don’t.’’
He is in the middle of a contentious debate over a possible referendum that would put a half-cent sales tax to a vote and raise $117-million for Go Hillsborough transportation projects.
How does that effect New Tampa?
Crist says the Go Hillsborough initiative calls for “significant” improvements in the USF area, particularly to Skipper Road, 42nd and 46th streets and Bruce B. Downs Blvd. (BBD). He said bottlenecks on BBD between Bearss and Fowler could be alleviated, and extensive resurfacing in the New Tampa area is included as well.
“I’m still studying the plan, and the funding of it, and the community’s attitudes towards it,’’ Crist says. “We’re mapping out all the proposed improvements within our district to take look at, what they are and what they do to see if they will be effective. I’m really doing my best to get my arms around this thing and understand it top to bottom. I plan to make a decision based on rationale information, and the assessment of rational information.”
Crist, who served in the Legislature for 18 years representing the USF area, says there is not enough money in the current budget to do the volume of work that needs to be done in the next 20 years.
“There’s $6-8 billion worth of work on the table now and only $50-60 million a year to put towards it,’’ he said.
First, Crist says he wants to determine if they are voting on a good plan, and he added that he thinks at least 80 percent of it will provide solid improvements and make a significant change. He wants to know where the projects are in 30 years and who is benefitting, and to eliminate any pork, or what he calls “fluff”, from it.
Secondly, he wants to know what the most effective funding source will be.
“There’s a variety of different funding sources, so we can use one, or all, or a combination,’’ Crist says.
And thirdly, and most importantly he says, is finding out how the public feels about it. If it’s a loser as an issue, Crist said that would weigh heavily on the decision to pursue any referendum.
Transit referendums have not done well in the Tampa Bay area recently. In 2010, a 1-cent tax referendum was defeated as 58 percent voted against it, and in 2014 Pinellas County’s Greenlight Pinellas referendum was opposed by 62 percent of voters.
However, transportation continues to be a major issue in the Tampa Bay area, and one that some leaders insist is keeping Hillsborough County from developing and thriving as it should.
Despite recent history, Crist says this referendum is only a half-cent, and the past failures seemed to focus only on high speed rail.
“This one is a complete plan mapped out with strategic projects,’’ he said.
He said a painstaking process involving 18 months of research with over 100 meetings to generate ideas and hear what people want done have helped shape this latest effort.
Crist freely admits the referendum isn’t something he thinks his constituents in the USF and New Tampa area would even support, but he wants to make sure voters understand this isn’t a high speed rail vote.
“New Tampa could care less about light rail,’’ Crist said. “It’s not important to us up here, or in Carrollwood or Cheval or Temple Terrace or Thonatosassa. And you know what, none of the dollars in the existing proposals from those areas will go to it.
“The idea that New Tampa is going to pay for light rail in south Tampa is baloney.”
Crist isn’t tipping his hand, but whatever he decides will be with an eye on the future, no matter how much heat he receives from fellow Republicans and Tea Partiers.
“At his point in my life, I’m doing the right thing regardless of the heat,’’ Crist said. “I’m at the point where I’m not afraid of the fire. What I’m afraid of is making the wrong the decision. I have a 3-and-a-half year old daughter, I want her to be able to walk to school safely, ride her bike to the shopping center or her friend’s house safely. When she climbs behind wheel of car at 16, she can drive safely and if she decided to work here in Tampa Bay, can get to and from her job in a reasonable amount of time.”
A decision to place a referendum on the 2016 ballot would need to be registered with the Division of Elections by May, and while Crist doesn’t plan on using all that time to decide, he said he will only do so after he has all the facts, probably sometime in January.
He is fully aware his decision could make his future in local politics perilous. While Tampa Tea Party co-founder Sharon Calvert, who Crist defeated in a primary to win his current seat in 2012, has declared in reports that there is no appetite for a tax, Crist sees the current debate being more about letting voters decide.
“There is a lot of meanness and ugliness out there on this issue,’’ he said. “There’s been a lot of fights the last two weeks on both sides. If it costs me, it’s not the end of the world. I’ll go out smiling.”
