Campaign kicks off for 2012 transportation referendum

By Ariel Hart

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

The campaign to get metro Atlanta residents to approve a sales tax for transportation in 2012 was launched Friday by leaders from more than 40 private companies, organizations and local governments.

Metro Atlanta Chamber Chairman Bill Linginfelter asked attendees at the gathering in Midtown to give money for the campaign, and to sign up to help. “You’re going to have to be involved,” he said.

But the chamber also played down its role. “Right now there isn’t one clear organization in charge of this process,” Linginfelter said.

Linginfelter and Tad Leithead, chairman of the Atlanta Regional Commission, whose planners will help officials choose the projects, said the two efforts must stay separate. It may take $4 million to $5 million to publicize the referendum, and that money and those efforts will have nothing to do with the process for picking projects, they stressed.

“Let’s leave that [the project list] to the experts” at the ARC and on the project-picking panel, Linginfelter said.

The audience, including representatives from city, county and state governments, also heard from officials in Phoenix, Denver and Salt Lake City, which passed similar referendums.

Peggy Bilsten, a former Phoenix city councilwoman who helped lead that area’s campaign for a transportation sales tax, pointed out that local investment helps a region compete for federal transportation funding. If Atlanta doesn’t pass its referendum, she said, “we in Phoenix will be happy as a community to take your federal dollars.”

The referendum was made possible by a bill (HB 277) the Legislature passed this spring.  It divides the state into 12 regions and allows each region to draw up its own list of transportation projects to submit to voters in 2012, along with a 1 percent sales tax over 10 years to fund them.

Metro Atlanta leaders had hoped such a referendum could bring in $7.5 billion to $7.9 billion over 10 years, but with tax exemptions in the bill and a portion of the money going to local governments, it could yield just over $5 billion for projects of regional significance.