SPLOST spending proposal:
Transportation: $287.3 million
Cities: $184.8 million
Public Services: $103 million
Public Safety: $88 million
Support Services: $48 million
Countywide projects: $38.8 million
Total collections: $750 million
Source: Cobb County
It will soon be up to Cobb County voters.
Cobb Commissioners on Tuesday were on their way late Tuesday to placing a six-year, $750 million special purpose sales tax on ballots this November — a levy they say is needed to pay for a host of county services from a $40,000 parking lot repair to $88 million for public safety agencies.
At $295 million, Cobb’s transportation department would be the biggest benefactor from the sales tax revenue, paying for pedestrian improvements, bridge repairs, drainage projects, traffic signals, technology to improve traffic flow and more.
But it’s the transportation project that Commission Chairman Tim Lee says is not on the list that is causing the most controversy.
A $500 million transit project that would run down Cobb Parkway, known as bus rapid transit, was rejected by Cobb voters during the 2012 Transportation SPLOST vote. There has been recent discussion of resurrecting the project with a massive federal grant that would pay for half of it.
Lee said earlier this month that individual intersection improvement projects on the SPLOST list would qualify as the county’s local match for the federal grant, and that the county had recently identified $72.5 million in projects that would help draw the federal money.
On Tuesday, Lee asked that those projects be removed from consideration in an attempt to assure the public that the commission was not trying to sneak the transit project past them.
BRT “in its entirety has been removed,” Lee said. “My intent, if the board sees fit in the future, would be to bring the BRT project forward in a public environment, in a separate election, on its own merits.”
Commissioner Lisa Cupid said citizens “shouldn’t have to play dectective” to understand the tax. She asked that another Cobb Parkway project, worth $60 million, also be removed and that language be added eliminating the possibility of the projects being used to obtain a federal grant for the BRT.
Removing most of the Cobb Parkway intersection improvements didn’t assure any of the nine people who spoke out against the SPLOST.
Fran Mitchell, an East Cobb resident for 37 years, told the commission they were spending money “like pirates.”
“All you’re trying to do is cram stuff down our throats,” Mitchell said. “We don’t trust you anymore.”
Mableton resident Rich Pellegrino, who has led the group Citizens for Governmental Transparency in opposing the public investment in the Braves stadium, agreed that commissioners have lost the public’s trust.
“It’s about trust,” Pellegrino said. “What I’m saying is I do not trust you with one red cent of my money.”
Once the SPLOST list is approved for ballots, the commissioners will have finalized the list of projects that would be funded with the revenue. There’s $20 million for a new 911 system; $43 million for a new police headquarters, renovation of training facilities, and a new fire station needed because of the Braves move to Cumberland; $23 million for new or refurbished libraries; $27 million for improvements to county parks.
Some $184 million will go to the six city governments for projects they have identified.
Many speakers suggested the project list be scaled back, provide more detail of the projects to the public, or that the length of the SPLOST be reduced from the current six-year plan.
Lance Lamberton, chairman of the Cobb Taxpayers Association, which has promised to mount a campaign against the tax, urged commissioners to wait a year before placing the tax on ballots in hopes that the general assembly would allow for fractional sales tax collections, which would allow for lower collections.
“The current list has turned into a slush fund that would make Santa Claus blush,” Lamberton said. “Taxpayers should not be forced to buy what they don’t need just to get what they do need.”
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