With time running out to sway undecided voters, pro- and anti-transportation tax campaigns intensified efforts over the weekend.
Yard signs went up en masse, volunteers went door to door, groups staged rallies outside the Five Points MARTA station and Piedmont Park, and politicians led crowd chants at a downtown Atlanta rally. Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed and Gov. Nathan Deal will appear together at the state capitol Monday morning to support the proposed tax, referred to as T-SPLOST.
The 10-county, 1-cent sales tax would raise $6.14 billion over a decade for regional transportation projects across metro Atlanta, with another $1 billion going to smaller, local projects determined by county and city governments.
For advocates, an $8 million Untie Atlanta campaign is poised to go down in flames if the latest polling is accurate. An Atlanta Journal-Constitution poll released Sunday shows opposition to the metro-region T-SPLOST at 51 percent, with 42 percent in favor and 7 percent undecided.
The numbers spurred both sides into a long weekend.
Advocates from Atlanta's east side greeted visitors at the Grant Park Farmers Market Sunday morning, where more than 100 people stopped by for information.
Volunteer Melissa Devereaux, a Grant Park resident, said visitors were looking for facts.
"A lot of people don't have as much information as you'd think," she said. "They still don't seem to understand that the money raised from the tax will stay in the region."
Many asked how the list of projects will be generated, not realizing that the final list has already been set, Devereaux said. They also were interested in which pieces of the Atlanta Beltline project will be funded, she said.
Several state and local officials, including State Senators Nan Orrock and Jason Carter and Atlanta City Council President Ceasar Mitchell were at the park to speak in favor of the T-SPLOST.
Farther north, members of the Georgia Tea Party Patriots, Georgia 9-12 Project and other volunteers opposed to the tax canvassed neighborhoods, setting up yard signs and talking with residents.
"We're putting up 'No T-SPLOST' signs wherever we see it looks pretty empty," said Mary Adamski of Lawrenceville, co-founder of the North Georgia 9-12 Project. "Everyone we've talked to is against it, and I don't know anyone personally who is for it. We have a traffic problem, but we need to find another solution."
The tax initiative is being assailed by a consortium of opponents, including the NAACP, the Sierra Club, the state's Tea Party Patriots, Senate Majority Leader Chip Rogers, R-Woodstock and state Sen. Vincent Fort, D-Atlanta. Supporters have their own lineup of heavy-hitters.
"Don't you ever worry about polls," Reed told some 150 people at a rally Saturday in Centennial Olympic Park. "Our job isn't to read the polls. Our job is to change the polls."
The rally featured speeches from U.S. Rep. John Lewis, Fulton County Commission Chairman John Eaves, DeKalb CEO Burrell Ellis, Norcross Mayor and transportation regional roundtable Chairman Bucky Johnson and others.
At stake, they said: generating jobs, unclogging congestion and demonstrating to the world — namely potential employers — that Atlanta can solve its transportation problems.
"This is the call of our generation," Ellis said. "We can lead the country out of the recession by passing this thing."
Meanwhile, Fort led one of about 20 teams taking their anti-T-SPLOST message door to door in south Fulton and south DeKalb.
Fort reminded voters that Fulton and DeKalb counties already pay a penny sales tax for MARTA, unlike Gwinnett, Cobb and others. And he said black contractors don't receive a fair shake from the state Department of Transportation.
Fort told patrons in a Subway restaurant, among his stops in West End, that "David is going to beat Goliath."
"They got $8 million," he said of the pro-tax campaign. "Guess how much we got — $800, and we're going to beat them."
West End resident Tonya Smith said she had already decided to vote no before encountering Fort in a Family Dollar store.
"I don't think it's fair," she said. "They want us to keep spending money."
Willie Watson, of Riverdale, said he's still reading up on the issue on the web.
"Once I get all the facts, then I'm going to make my decision," Watson said. "Will it create jobs like they say it's going to create jobs? Will it benefit everyone in general — black, white, Hispanic, Asian?"
Michael Hadden, a Roswell resident who attended the Centennial Olympic Park rally, said it should have been held in north Fulton, where he believes pro-tax residents like himself are in a minority. He came there to pick up a yard sign, he said, after a vote-no sign went up in front of his apartment complex.
"There's just such an anti-tax sentiment right now," Hadden, who runs a blog at NewUrbanRoswell.com, said. "It's going to be hard to get past that in the suburbs."
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