Some of the same metro Atlanta officials who put together wish lists of projects for next year’s transportation sales tax referendum don’t think the tax stands a chance.
Not if the vote were held now, anyway.
The Georgia Municipal Association asked mayors, city council members, city managers and city clerks if the vote were held today, would their region approve a penny sales tax to raise money for transportation improvements: 40 percent said no. Thirty percent responded yes, and the remaining 30 percent said they don't know.
Conventional wisdom holds that the transportation tax, up for vote in July 2012, has a better chance in metro Atlanta than in the state's 11 other regions. But the GMA survey underscores the tough sell ahead in persuading voters to raise $7 billion over 10 years through a self-imposed tax.
“If I weren't intimately involved, I’d say no, too, because we haven’t even picked the projects that are going to be on the list,” said Norcross Mayor Bucky Johnson, chairman of the regional roundtable that will assemble the final list of projects and a "yes" vote in the survey. “If people don’t understand what they’re getting for their money, how could they say yes at this point?”
Considered the best hope for salvaging Atlanta's status as a transportation hub, the billions would pay for road widenings, intersection reconfigurations and public transit extensions in a 10-county area.
A separate, earlier poll of voters by the campaign to pass the referendum shows that, with the right messaging, the tax has a lead, said Paul Bennecke, a political strategist who is helping lead the $5 million privately funded metro Atlanta campaign to approve the tax. The results showed 26 percent in favor of the tax, 15 percent opposed and 59 percent as swing voters, depending on the message and the project list.
“We understand there’s a lot ahead of us over the next 14 months,” Bennecke said. “We’re so far out, people don’t actually know the specifics, and they shouldn't."
The GMA survey was emailed to 2,450 officials, and 609 responded. Of those, 113 were from the Atlanta region, GMA spokeswoman Amy Henderson said.
The Fayette County Issues Tea Party, one of the largest groups opposing the referendum, has reached out to counterparts in Cobb and Fulton counties so far and is laying plans for meetings in five more counties soon, co-founder Harold Bost said.
“Considering the fact we are just beginning to fight, I am very encouraged to see such a high negative from elected officials,” said Bost, a former Fayette County Commission chairman.
Johnson said mayors and council members probably said no because of the poor economy.
Chamblee Mayor Eric Clarkson was among those who said the proposal is doomed. It’s not that Clarkson -- whose city of nearly 18,000 people has easy access to MARTA trains and the asphalt of I-285 -- doesn't see a need. It's that residents in DeKalb and Fulton counties already pay a penny extra in sales tax to fund MARTA, he said.
"Right now, it’s a plan to fail," Clarkson said. "And it needs to fail until someone figures out how to look at true transit and true regional needs.”
Atlanta Councilman C.T. Martin said he didn't get the survey email, but count him as a "don't know." The project selection list so far has been insulting to the inner cities, he said, with DeKalb and Fulton having minimal voices on the roundtable executive committee and the pro-tax campaign lacking minority or female leadership -- something Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed blasted.
The question of regional transit is another sticking point in the two core counties. No one has decided what fair funding would look like if a regional system were created.
The mayors of Decatur and Roswell have floated an idea that, over time, residents in all five key counties -- Clayton, Cobb, DeKalb, Fulton and Gwinnett -- would pay 1.5 cents in sales tax to spread out the cost. Sandy Springs Mayor Eva Galambos wants to take the money already spent on MARTA and bus systems in the outer counties and put it into a single account to fund a new system.
Despite lingering questions, many voters are already on board. Sandra McMillion moved from San Francisco to College Park 11 months ago and blames Atlanta's pothole-filled roads for her SUV needing about $2,000 in suspension system repairs.
Raising Fulton's sales tax to 8 cents is nothing, she said. In her former city, the tax is 9.5 percent.
"I don't want them to keep raising taxes, and I wish they would find another way," McMillion said. "But something needs to be done. A penny seems reasonable."
Staff writer Ariel Hart contributed to this article.
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