Hillsborough County Democrats Rail Tax Is In the Danger Zone and Worse than AFT's 2018 ILLEGAL Rail Tax

For those who think a rail/transit sales tax hike referendum could not get any worse than the All for Transportation (AFT) ILLEGAL tax perpetrated on voters in 2018, think again.

Who is responsible for putting a more nefarious rail/transit tax hike worse than AFT's on the November ballot? Democrat Hillsborough County commissioners Kimberly Overman, Mariella Smith, Harry Cohen, Gwen Myers and Pat Kemp aka the Tampa Centric 5.  

Leaders of Tampa Bay Transportation Organizations Request Gov DeSantis Veto TBARTA Funding

Today leaders of No Tax For Tracks, Save Our Streets Pinellas, and Fix Our Roads First sent a request to Governor DeSantis urging the Governor to veto the $1.375 million funding for TBARTA in the budget. 

UPDATE: Consent Agenda Items to Hand Tampa Focused Organizations County Transportation Tax Dollars Were Removed From Today's BOCC Meeting

This is an update to our previous post Hillsborough County Using Consent Agenda to Hand Tampa Focused Organizations County Transportation Tax Dollars

Some concerned citizens contacted commissioners requesting the 3 Consent Agenda items be removed from the Consent Agenda. They also raised their objections to the County handing out taxpayer funds to these organizations.

Kudos to Commissioner White who yesterday asked for the items to be removed from the Consent Agenda so each can be discussed transparently and voted on separately.

Apparently after White's request was made, the Westshore Alliance, the wealthiest district in the Hillsborough County, suddenly decided they did not need the taxpayer funds. The Consent Agenda item handing County transportation tax dollars to the Alliance was deleted from today's agenda. 

Interestingly, the other two Consent Agenda items to hand County transportation tax dollars to the Tampa Downtown Partnership and USF's New North Transportation Alliance (NNTA) were taken off today's agenda. 

These agenda items were moved to the June 15th County commission meeting.

The County must put these items on the June 15 Regular agenda to be openly discussed and separately voted on not rubber stamped thru the Consent Agenda.

We will be watching.

Hillsborough County Hires HNTB, With PR, Marketing and Political Consulting Firms In Tow, For Transportation "Public Engagement" Before Knowing What the Campaign Will Cost Taxpayers

It is rail tax campaign time again in Hillsborough County!

Hillsborough County commissioners voted today to hire HNTB for a transportation public engagement program....right after the Tampa Centric 5 voted to put an $18 BILLION rail tax on the November ballot. 

But no one was told how much this will cost taxpayers. No cost estimate, even if just high level, was provided to the commissioners or the public for how much the County expects to spend with HNTB. 

Hillsborough County Using Consent Agenda to Hand Tampa Focused Organizations County Transportation Tax Dollars

At Wednesday's May 4, 2022 Hillsborough County Commission meeting there are 3 Consent Agenda items for the County to hand taxpayer dollars to three so-called public-private "Transportation Management Organizations" (TMO). 

Items on the Consent Agenda allow no discussion because all the items on the Consent Agenda are voted on with just one rubber stamp vote. Consent Agenda items are supposed to be used for routine, non-controversial agenda items. 

This money is flowing right after the commission voted to put the AFT 2.0 30 year ONE PERCENT (NOT ONE CENT) $18 BILLION rail tax do-over on the ballot.

All three of these TMO's are primarily Tampa focused.