Two of Georgia's most recognizable Democratic politicians appeared deep in Republican country on Tuesday to make closing arguments in favor of the 1 percent sales tax that's up for a regional vote next week.
At nearly the same time, one of the state's most powerful Republicans held a news conference in downtown Atlanta where he urged voters to reject funding a transportation plan he thinks is flawed and ineffective.
With less than a week to go before voters head to the polls to decide if metro Atlanta should adopt the penny tax to fund hundreds of transportation projects, politicians on both sides continue to aim a flurry of arguments at undecided voters.
Former Gov. Roy Barnes and Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed told a crowd of more than 100 and a bank of television cameras at the Smyrna Community Center that Cobb County voters should support a tax to fund transportation projects, and embrace the regional collaboration it symbolizes.
It was the first joint appearance for the two Democrats to push for the tax, and one of Reed's few excursions outside of Atlanta city limits to push for passage.
Reed called Cobb, where skepticism of the tax runs high, "an American success story." He urged it not to rest on its laurels.
"I'm asking for your help," Reed said. "I pray and hope that you'll give us a hand."
The regional 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.
But it won't do enough to ease congestion, said Senate Majority Leader Chip Rogers, R-Woodstock, who spoke at the state Capitol in downtown Atlanta on Tuesday.
Rogers led a group of five legislators who vowed to begin work immediately after the vote to prepare another, better solution to the region's traffic woes. They object to the TSPLOST's spending on rail projects. They prefer a plan aimed at building and improving roads.
"If voters are going to have this money taken from them, it needs to be for a purpose that ends in success," Rogers said.
Which vision Cobb County voters embrace will go a long way towards deciding the fate of the T-SPLOST.
Both Reed and Barnes said the T-SPLOST would help Cobb continue its legacy of pro-business growth, put residents back to work and boost property values.
"Is it a perfect plan? It is not," said Barnes, a native of Mableton. "But don't compare it against the plan of salvation. Compare it to what we have now. What we have now is a mess."
Republican Gov. Nathan Deal, who is on a trade mission in Europe this week, said he will be among those making a case for the tax in the closing days. Deal has been supportive of the tax but less vocal than Reed.
T-SPLOST backers will need all the help they can get in Cobb, where the referendum has solidified anti-tax sentiment. Both tax opponents and boosters are scrounging for votes in Georgia's fourth-largest county by population, as internal polls by the Untie Atlanta campaign show a tight race across the 10-county metro region. Other polls, however, have shown the tax plan losing by a sometimes wide margin.
One heckler interjected during Reed's speech, and one man grumbled afterwards that the forum didn't include air time for tax opponents. But the Smyrna crowd was mostly friendly to Reed and Barnes, with a group of young people wearing "Untie Atlanta" T-shirts.
That support may not represent the feelings of a majority of county residents. An East Cobb forum in Marietta on Monday night attracted about 300 people, the majority of them critics of the tax plan.
On Tuesday, a small but determined group of tax plan opponents sporting "no T-SPLOST" stickers sat at the back of the crowded room, waved "Say No to the Tax" signs.
"I have a problem with the project list, and I have a problem with the wording on the ballot — they are trying to say vote yes," said Mableton resident Patricia Hay. "This list now has a lot of pork in it, like sidewalks and things that won't relieve traffic congestion."
Barnes acknowledged on Tuesday that "it's going to be a difficult fight" for T-SPLOST advocates in Cobb.
State Rep. Ed Setzler, R-Acworth, said the law that created the July 31 referendum allows for the same question to be put before voters again in 2014 should this month's vote fail. But supporters of this year's referendum and its project list say it would likely be 2016 before voters could again decide.
Reed and Barnes said there was no time to wait. But some Cobb County residents say there would be little harm in slowing down the T-SPLOST train.
"I don't think it's [the proposed tax plan] or nothing," said 30-year Cobb resident Wayne LaRue. "There are ways to approach this with a smaller group of counties to make things more efficient and focused on the traffic problem."
Meanwhile, Cobb County supporters of the T-SPLOST take heart in voters' support for certain taxes that have passed county-wide votes, including several rounds of education sales taxes.
Kathy Slough has lived in east Cobb since the 1980s and plans to vote for the transportation plan. Her commute to her job as a legal secretary in Midtown takes 45 minutes. If the tax plan fails, her commute could double over the next few years, she said.
"It's not perfect, but it's a start," she said. "If this doesn't pass, when I retire, I won't stay in Atlanta because of the traffic. I will leave this state because it's too antiquated in its thinking."
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