T-SPLOST vote reiterates: We’re more ‘metro’ than ‘Atlanta’
On Tuesday’s ballots, perhaps no question was more opposite the T-SPLOST in scope and spirit than the cityhood initiative for Brookhaven. Their opposite results — voters soundly defeated the T-SPLOST but approved Brookhaven’s incorporation — create a congruity that helps explain why the tax proposal was ill-designed from the start.
In short: Our region is not becoming more centralized, but less. The popular and political momentum is not toward bigger, but smaller.
Counting Brookhaven, which becomes a city of some 49,000 residents, four of Georgia’s 20 most-populous cities didn’t exist just seven years ago. All four — the others are Dunwoody, Johns Creek and Sandy Springs — are in Fulton and DeKalb counties. So are two smaller new cities, Chattahoochee Hills and Milton.
The biggest reason these areas incorporated was to insulate themselves as much as possible from costly, ineffective county governments. But it’s instructive that, while both Brookhaven and Sandy Springs abut Atlanta, neither of them sought refuge in the big city’s arms.
In fact, the last half-century of our history shows that, while the gravitational pull for the state’s population is toward Atlanta, the drift within the metro area is toward the edges. In 1960, Atlanta was a city of 487,455 in a metro area of 1.3 million. The 2010 census found a city of 420,003 in a metro area of almost 5.3 million. This steady trend toward the periphery did not prevent prosperity.
This is a different development pattern than other large U.S. metro areas have seen, or at least a starker example of a common one. Among the nation’s 20 largest metro areas, the average central city is home to a fifth of its region’s residents. Atlanta dropped below that threshold sometime in the 1970s and now sits at 8 percent. Only Miami and Riverside, Calif., anchor less-centralized regions.
Getting back to the T-SPLOST, the cities to which tax proponents often compared Atlanta have far more concentrated populations. To name a few: Dallas (19 percent of its metro area’s residents live in the hub city), Denver (24 percent), Portland (26 percent), Houston (35 percent), Phoenix (35 percent), Charlotte (42 percent).
To reach those levels of centralization, hundreds of thousands of metro Atlantans would have to move inside the capital city’s limits. Can anyone honestly envision that happening?
Yet, the city of Atlanta stood to receive the highest share of T-SPLOST spending relative to the tax revenues it generated: 140 percent. Gwinnett County, to name one counter-example, was to keep just 74 cents on the dollar.
It’s true that commuters in each county stood to benefit from projects built elsewhere, but those figures were overly skewed. The Atlanta-centric nature of the project list ran counter to the way metro residents have voted with their feet. And that gave the appearance, at least, that the point was not to relieve traffic congestion where it has developed, but to turn that gravitational pull back toward the central city. Which fed into the crucial issue of trust, or lack thereof.
As an Atlanta resident myself, I don’t want to see the city continue its stagnation. But I do think its renaissance will require much more than a force-feeding of transportation funding from elsewhere. If the T-SPLOST’s defeat spurs Atlanta’s leaders to figure out what else they need to do, maybe the whole lamentable exercise was worthwhile.
– By Kyle Wingfield
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310 comments Add your comment
Dirty Dawg
August 4th, 2012
4:56 pm
By the way Kyle, what does your source say about the percentage of the population that resides in the ‘hub’ city of Nashville…suspect it’s near 100% since they consolidated all their county and municipal governments fifty years ago…bet they get things done a lot cheaper and more quickly than we do.
middle of the road
August 4th, 2012
5:05 pm
“I say let Fulton and Dekalb vote to add another penny to MARTA without the stupid 50/50 restriction”
I think that is a GREAT idea. Perhaps then you could also lower the fare back down to $1.50 for your poor people to pay.
OR… you could up the fare or put it on a sliding scale (like Washington, DC), and get MARTA a whole lot closer to being self-sufficient. .
Logic was never intended for libs
August 4th, 2012
5:19 pm
Well, looks like Bookman’s minions have fled back to safety.
Carl
August 4th, 2012
5:20 pm
All comments are correct……I like reading them all for there is a lot to be learned about Government period. MARTA…….or transportation in general for the state of Georgia was not at all plan well nor for the growth. I think it was all about getting people in to collect revenue anyway they can; for a while it did some good but nothing for the long term. It’s like a big cattle farm, getting everybody into one place and making them suffer trying to get someplace where they have some decent way of moving. Only one way the government can come back on us all is by taxes….and they fail to realize people are taxed enough, there is so many blames going around that those involved with this whole TSPLOST matter should have had citizens in on it from all of the counties involved. They only let the “big guys” in on it and we all know that no matter where you live, work or play here in Georgia, the traffic-pattern was never fully routed or built for any long range outward because they looked at central-downtown………..Coke………and the Airport as being the focus as Atlanta-bread and butter. Then they made this 285 which is like all of the rest, it stay bogged down if there is a wreck and they shut or close everything making it a big problem upon a problem! If you take an aerial view of the traffic problem it is like a mess running into a mess and leaving a mess. I knew this TSPLOST was a failure from the beginning; because it had to concrete facts or directions. All it wanted was for it to past to get the next 1cent or for some the next 2cent. What I am very disappointed in is our local and counties officials and all those involved in this mess to resign for telling us the lies they have. Lies come back to haunt those who do so……which means none of them can run for public office again for we will all remember who they were. The question is, can the traffic here be solved, I mean solved or is that a losely term for a simple NO? Finally, 10 – 20 years of funding for the 7 or 17 billions that is to made if it did pass; who would see what it actually does………and when would the untie traffic constructions begins? Within those first 10 years I do think that a new Georgia Dome and upscale building would take place if not already and some of that money would be use to further it along; critical was for the parking decks for cars who would be attention those games or anyother events that the dome would be sponsoring; there were some hotels on the list either for revamping to be upscaled or new one to be built. It was sort of hopeful that TSPLOSt past so the owners and developers could move a little fasters to see if they would have a chance of having the super bowl here within the next few years. I think they were already in the process of making their claims. That is it from me!
Logic was never intended for libs
August 4th, 2012
5:22 pm
“But realize YOU are the reason for the congestion. We should charge YOU by coming up with a sufficient gas tax or alternative (commuter tax) that gives Atlanta the resources we need to enhance our public transportation to Foster more growth and development intown.”
Chicago has toll roads for suburbanites to enter the city. Years ago, the ex-mayor said that the tolls would be taken down when the interstate was done with construction.
Guess what, it never happened and traffic is really really bad. Go ahead and try to charge folks for coming into the city and you’ll see businesses leave and move out to the burbs.
Logic was never intended for libs
August 4th, 2012
5:24 pm
BTW, folks who always cry and whine about how Marta should come out to the burbs should look at Chicago. The city, with all it’s gun laws, has the highest death rate in the country and a lot of it comes in by way of the red line from the south side. Rahm is shutting down the south side rail line for a year to try to curb a lot of the crime that comes in from the wasteland.
Logic was never intended for libs
August 4th, 2012
5:25 pm
“Racism ended sometime in the ’60s, didn’t it, cause otherwise it would be because they don’t want to be ‘bossed’ around by one/some of ‘them’?”
Dumbest comment of the day. When one can’t defend a horrible presidents record, blame it on racism.
Hillbilly D
August 4th, 2012
5:43 pm
Guess what, it never happened and traffic is really really bad.
That Dan Ryan Expressway is the damndest mess I’ve ever seen, anywhere. I’d put Detroit traffic a close 2nd but that was back in the 70’s. It may not be the same now.
Mr. Wrestling Number Four
August 4th, 2012
5:48 pm
td – The 285 top end traffic is headed to Perimeter area which I was including. The MARTA N-S line takes some traffic off the downtown connector. So road traffic volumes aren’t a great indicator of job locations. And the I-285 / GA400 interchange was one of the big TSPLOST projects. I don’t use MARTA, but traffic would be real bad without it.
I think lots of people actually don’t mind the traffic – a couple of hours each day away from nagging, wife, kids, boss. For $30k can buy a nice bubble – great stereo, comfortable seat – can even turn south and it will take you down to the beach. The car is great. I like mass transit because it gets people off the roads I want to use.
Traffic also is not bad when school is out – but gotta educate the little buggers anyway.
We’ll muddle along without TSPLOST – world won’t end – but it would have been better with it. It wasn’t some trick or money-grab, it was start at addressing the $30B+ in transportation needs the region (locally – not state or federal) identified. Was a chance to get ahead of the congestion in some areas.
Dusty
August 4th, 2012
5:49 pm
I report 3:43
Well, another poet here, I see. (Why dId I think of THE NIGHT BEFORE CHIRSTMAS when reading it?)) Nice to have a bit of chiming and rhyming for a change even if the “moderator machine” did blanche a bit.
Edward Lear, watch out! “I Report” has arrived.
ch
August 4th, 2012
6:08 pm
@intown,
It seems you live a privileged life. Not necessarily how most live in Atlanta. As an example found 17 pages of homes between 10 and 30k in Decatur. I’m happy that the in town crowd will have an adequate tax base to support their needs. No need to worry about me, I’m doing just fine.
md
August 4th, 2012
6:13 pm
“Look I personally don’t care that people choose to live in a Boring suburb replete with olive gardens and TGI Fridays while commuting 45 mins to the city to work. But realize YOU are the reason for the congestion. We should charge YOU by coming up with a sufficient gas tax or alternative (commuter tax) that gives Atlanta the resources we need to enhance our public transportation to Foster more growth and development intown”
And there’s that little picture thought process again……all those people coming in from elsewhere also have a tendency to help the city……by providing JOBS. It is their income that helps maintain all those people working at the gas stations, restaurants, stadiums, and even marta. Maybe they should all go away……and see what you have left.
Rafe Hollister, suffering through Oblamer's ineptocracy
August 4th, 2012
6:15 pm
As I pointed out in a previous post the racism thing cuts both ways. Since Maynard Jackson replaced Andy Young as Black Mayor number 2, black politicians have claimed Atlanta as a minority controlled city. Every time some white councilman proposed annexing a white area into the city to improve the tax base, the NAACP and the ruling politicians cried foul, that this was a move to dilute and end minority control over the city.
There is some provision in the Voting Rights Act or the Civil Rights Act that precludes a predominately minority district or city from being changed by the legislature, when that change dilutes the minority voting strength. So, if someone tried to start a movement to annex all the land inside I-285, or to combine Atlanta/Fulton County government, the first call would go to the Justice Department for approval. If there was any doubt at all that minority control would not be maintained, the Justice Department would veto the initiative.
That is more more proof of Reagan’s statement, that Government is not the solution to any problem, government is the problem.
Rafe Hollister, suffering through Oblamer's ineptocracy
August 4th, 2012
6:19 pm
The idea about putting tolls on the roads leading into Atlanta is loony. All the small businesses owned by suburbanites would move out of the city and all that would be left would be government jobs and many of those would also move.
md
August 4th, 2012
6:19 pm
“By the way Kyle, what does your source say about the percentage of the population that resides in the ‘hub’ city of Nashville…suspect it’s near 100% since they consolidated all their county and municipal governments fifty years ago…bet they get things done a lot cheaper and more quickly than we do.”
If that was the solution, Jacksonville would be a world class city by now seeing as it’s the biggest in the US……but a las, it has some major problems just like everywhere else……..
JamVet
August 4th, 2012
6:28 pm
That is more more proof of Reagan’s statement, that the Reagan GOP is not the solution to any problem, the Reagan GOP is the problem.
Michael H. Smith
August 4th, 2012
6:59 pm
atler8
You can feel any way you wish and misspeak as you have chosen, for many do know exactly what I’ve said past and present far better than you obviously. However I choose to speak as I desire, not as you want me to speak.
If you like the social democracy the democrats as a majority of them do, then it is your choice. However I’ll not be converting anytime during this life to that depraved value system that voids individualism.
Now do your own talking, to who ever, about whatever. Your comments no longer have any appeal to me.
Corey
August 4th, 2012
7:06 pm
Fed Up
August 4th, 2012
1:07 pm
Fed Up, please do some research. There are members on MARTA’s board who are from counties that MARTA does not serve. The City of Atlanta does not control MARTA. There is no MARTA department in city hall. MARTA is an authority which functions as a quasi-governmental entity. The next time you see a MARTA vehicle/bus look at the license plate. It says AUTH for authority.
Michael H. Smith
August 4th, 2012
7:41 pm
transportation in general for the state of Georgia was not at all plan well nor for the growth.
I seriously doubt if you know the depth of truth you spoke in making that part of your statement. You can check this out to verify how little many of the state roads and federal highways have chanced from their original paths since before the war between north and south. How’s that for a plan.
Bear in mind the political party in control of everything in this state for over a 100 years during this time and that gives you a good idea where to find the rest of the reason we’ve had real great planning and investing in infrastructure in most of the State
Atlanta for instance has been democrat since God created a Donkey I do believe, and it shows! The City ignored its water and sewer infrastructure for years parts of it a 100 years, unlike Gwinnett County that turned Republican over several more recent decades and that too shows! Our water and sewers in Gwinnett are among the best.
So what are the differences: As I pointed out before, it is Democracy verses Republic and the underlying political realities of each in the philosophy that guides the actions of each chose.
In Gwinnett we chose to tax ourselves a little as we went along to build our infrastructure rather than rely on others for money once at the point of a water and sewer collapse. Atlanta didn’t and now they are screaming because the taxes they must pay to do the job neglected for years puts a heavy burden on many who can’t afford sky high water bills but they would just love for the State or the rest of suburbanites to step in and help, which is about par for the City’s democrat altruism course.
Republican certainly are not manna from heaven. However until the betrayal of GA 400 and this T-SPLOST they showed signs of doing a better job on water and roads than democrats.
Hillbilly D
August 4th, 2012
7:44 pm
Actually, Atlanta’s water and sewer department were in pretty good shape until Maynard came along.
Tiberius - pulling the tail of the left AND right when needed
August 4th, 2012
7:53 pm
The libs on here are as nasty and dismal as I’ve seen since the shellacking they took in the 2010 Congressional elections.
You LOST! Get over it and move on.
And don’t act this way if Romney gets elected this year. It’s unbecoming and petty of you.
Chris Koch
August 4th, 2012
8:07 pm
Hillbilly: our sewer system has been in bad shape long before we had black mayors.
Tiberius: As sad as I am I am over the lost TSLOST. All that this demonstrates is that the differences between the city and suburbs are now not reconcilable.
We can plan regionaly, but its clear that we must act locally to improve our city.
BTW are you over Obamacare? You LOST.
Michael H. Smith
August 4th, 2012
8:55 pm
Hillbilly D
Yeah pretty good shape like those pipes that were said to be a hundred years old?
Nah, Atlanta politicians let things go when they should have stepped up to the plate and told people you can pay a little bit at a time now before things get so far gone you will not be able to bear the financial burden of a systemic failures.
Same goes for the deomcrats who controlled this state for hundred years that should have said pay a little for roads now while the land is available and cheaper and it will be easier to build obstructively. Then again Mayor Franklin had to get out and fix the potholes herself.
Amazing how back in the sixties living in Deekalb I remember potholes. After moving to Gwinnett once Republicans took over I soon noticed the absence of potholes in this county.
Michael H. Smith
August 4th, 2012
8:59 pm
Oopsy obstructively should have been unobstructed
Michael H. Smith
August 4th, 2012
9:08 pm
All that this demonstrates is that the differences between the city and suburbs are now not reconcilable.
What do you know 4 pages later someone figures out that Democracies and Republics, socialism and capitalism are just to extremely different to ever mesh.
Uh… md, did you say they don’t get it? Well, at least one of them did.
rc35
August 4th, 2012
9:09 pm
I lived in the ATL back in the 1970’s. There was a lot more money available to build roads, but the good people of Atlanta didn’t want them. The Jimmy Carter (library) Freeway would have continued east, but it would have led to blighted urban neighborhoods and was truncated. A second loop outside I-285 was nixed by the idealists to avoid “urban sprawl” (Just think…if it had been passed, we might have people living miles from Downtown and commuting in…oops!). If people had looked ahead 40 years ago, we might have had a much better system today. As it stands, I find it hard to generate much sympathy for the same people who didn’t want new roads.
Remember that Decatur has played second fiddle to Atlanta for 150 years because they didn’t want that smoky, noisy railroad coming into their fair city, so it went west to Terminus/Marthasville/Atlanta instead. Maybe in years to come, Macon, Chattanooga, and Columbus will benefit from the growth Atlanta didn’t want.
Michael H. Smith
August 4th, 2012
9:22 pm
Oh boy, it’s that old urban sprawl again… bring on the Smart Growth.
When “Smart Growth” Isn’t – Wendell Cox – Show-Me Institute
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rZcaeFdwMQw
Tiberius - pulling the tail of the left AND right when needed
August 4th, 2012
9:33 pm
Chris Koch, I’m well over Obamacare. Since Roberts decided it was a tax, the new Republican Senate can kill it with a simple majority. I’m loving it!
As to your contention that the TSPLOST vote was based on city vs. suburbs, I think you incorrectly disregard the disdain people have for ANY tax right now. I think that was the far greater motivation to vote this down.
moonbat betty
August 4th, 2012
9:43 pm
Spot on Wingfield.
They could pass some of it if they break it up in chunks and let the counties take care of themselves.
I Report (-: You Whine )-: mmm, mmmm, mmmmm! Just sayin...
August 4th, 2012
9:43 pm
We will get rid of obozo with a simple majority too and that will be even more to love.
Vast Right Wing Conspiracy
August 4th, 2012
9:56 pm
Just as an example, go to google maps and check out the new international terminal at Hartsfield. $1.6 billion? Its not that big – should have been built for $300 to $400 million, tops. When you combine that level of graft, corruption, and incompetence, why give them some more money?
Logic was never intended for libs
August 4th, 2012
9:58 pm
” the Reagan GOP is the problem.”
Oh I’d love to hear how Reagan is worse than Obama.
Logic was never intended for libs
August 4th, 2012
9:59 pm
“That Dan Ryan Expressway is the damndest mess I’ve ever seen, anywhere.”
It is a mess. Fortunately for me I live in an area where I can take the EL to work.
Michael H. Smith
August 4th, 2012
10:07 pm
It issues goes deeper than anti-tax alone Tiberius. Very sharp political differences exist between the tax supporters and the tax non-supporters.
Many I know have the same sentiments as do I: One mention of MARTA kills any deal.Throw in the Big Gub’Ment socialist thinking democrats of Fulton(Atlanta City Government) and DeKalb gaining an ounce of power from opposing small government republic thinking counties only kicks the dog in the head.
Tiberius - pulling the tail of the left AND right when needed
August 4th, 2012
10:17 pm
“It issues goes deeper than anti-tax alone Tiberius.”
Never said it did, MHS.
I was simply pointing out that the city vs. suburb analysis by Chris was incorrect, and that general anti-tax sentiment was probably the prevailing (but not sole) reason, especially given that the city voted it down as well.
JamVet
August 4th, 2012
10:17 pm
Oh I’d love to hear how Reagan is worse than Obama.
No you don’t, you just put your fingers in your ears and start babbling to drown out what you don’t want to hear from your cocoon of ignorance.
But what the hell, for the other bloggers here…
By the end of his presidency, 138 (!!!) officials in his administration had been convicted, indicted, or been the subject of investigations for official misconduct and/or criminal violations. A record that no other administration has ever come near.
ONE HUNDRED AND THIRTY EIGHT.
His rogues gallery included James Watt (Sec. of Interior), Edwin Meese (Atty. General), E. Bob Wallach, Lynn Nofziger, Michael Deaver, Caspar Weinberger (Sec. of Defense), Raymond Donovan, Elliot Abrams, Robert McFarland, John Poindexter, Richard Secord, Alan Fiers, Clair George, Max Hugel and Duane Clarridge of the CIA, Luis Glurtfrida (Dir, of FEMA), Edwin Grey (Home Loan Bank), Charles Wick (Dir. of the US Information Agency), and of course, the highly disgraced Oliver North.
Put that in your Reaganista pipe and smoke it.
Now go read a book or two and learn something of importance…
Reverie
August 4th, 2012
10:19 pm
Why can’t I have an opinion without someone suggesting my opinion is based on “hate”? I think This did nothing for anyone and spent too much money on studies and pipe dreams. Where it really flew south for me was when MARTA revealed 100% of the money it received from TSPLOST went to maintenance and repairs. Really? So I live in a county that opts out of MARTA basically because we don’t trust Atlanta, and when it is revealed our fears are well formed you expect us to bail Atlanta out? Atlanta thinks its a great idea to saddle itself with the Trolly to MLK Center when even its staunchest supporters admit there is no path forward that could get it to stand on its own feet? Again, why am I a racist? Because I think feasibility studies are not things you pay for with a special tax. Shouldn’t we use the feasibility study to convince me to invest my tax money into an actual project with a tangible result? I’m a racist because I don’t think I should send my money into a city that is calling me a racist? Atlanta has a mayor voted in because he is black and I’m the racist? Really? We have an airport run as a perpetual money tree for the families of Maynard Jackson and my suggestion that we turn it over to the state is racist? That same airport fires arguably the finest Airport Manager in the world (who is black herself) in order to install a patsy for first Bill Campbell, then his successor and is now trying to defend itself from corruption lawsuits because it handed those same families lucrative retail contracts? As far as I am concerned Atlanta needs to put its house in order, restore its relationships with neighboring municipalities and allow Them to have a greater say in what goes on. This isn’t racism, it is Management 101. Fix yourself, quit hiding behind your race shield and start making the hard decisions. THEN you will get my support. Until that happens I have no intention of throwing good money into that cesspool. Racist? Nope. Realist.
Chris Koch
August 4th, 2012
10:23 pm
Logic: Don’t pick on Reagan he was not a bad president, he just wasn’t a great one. He was kinda like great granddad be an air trafic contoler, but we still love him cause he was great grand dad.
Tiberius: It is clear that the ppl of Atl don’t have a distain for NEW taxes. Just before Reed was elected we raised property tax because we like having firemen and police. We voted to extend the penny sales tax to support our schools as well as another penny for our acient sewers.
Most ppl in the city understand that you get what you pay for, thats why we supported the TSPOST.
Michael H. Smith
August 4th, 2012
10:27 pm
Never said it did
All but didn’t, Tiberius.
You put too much emphasis on the anti-tax sentiment, IMHO. It might surprise you the willingness of people to pay a tax – even now – if they feel is just and not out of their control when it benefits them sufficiently.
I’d be willing to say, any number of us could redesign a transportation tax amendment right now and get it past by the voters at the ballot box.
I Report (-: You Whine )-: mmm, mmmm, mmmmm! Just sayin...
August 4th, 2012
10:30 pm
It’s pretty obvious that if you’re a president that loves his country and makes it great, like Reagan did, the loony left will foam about until the end of time.
Chris Koch
August 4th, 2012
10:38 pm
So folks, what is the plane you voted down the TSPLOST. Franly specking we in the city have a plan and we have an alternative funding source for it. So what are you gonna do?
Michael H. Smith
August 4th, 2012
10:39 pm
So I live in a county that opts out of MARTA basically because we don’t trust Atlanta, and when it is revealed our fears are well formed you expect us to bail Atlanta out?
Well, yeah, they do… I mean, that’s kind of the way socialism usually works, by using other people’s money to pay for social welfare like MARTA, the government owned means of transportation, until it runs out money and they have no more money to confiscate from other people.
getalife
August 4th, 2012
10:41 pm
I report,
This is not the reagan gop. They would purge him for raising taxes.This is the tea party gop.
Michael H. Smith
August 4th, 2012
10:48 pm
So what are you gonna do?
Probably alot better than you and the City Atlanta shall do. We already have a transportation SPLOST, one of if not the best water sewer systems, plenty of parks likely more than any other county in the state… but hey I don’ t like to brag just because we could do it without crying to the state to tax other counties to pay for it all. In fact, we are what is know as a “donor county” as well!
td
August 4th, 2012
10:49 pm
getalife
August 4th, 2012
10:41 pm
I report,
This is not the reagan gop. They would purge him for raising taxes.This is the tea party gop.
I see you are dreaming again. If you ever read Reagan’s commentaries then you would see what conservatism is all about.
Tiberius - pulling the tail of the left AND right when needed
August 4th, 2012
10:49 pm
“I’d be willing to say, any number of us could redesign a transportation tax amendment right now and get it past by the voters at the ballot box.”
I seriously doubt it, not based on the vote tallies from this one. Wasn’t even close.
Chris Koch
August 4th, 2012
10:51 pm
Good Lord MHS, wait who is bailing who out? COA never asked the burgs for money. The city asked for cooperation with MARTA. Now it bothers you that b/c u can’t drive through ATL at the speed you wish. Those of us that live and work in ATL don’t get stuck on the expressway, so why should we pay for ur commute dependent lifestyle? The TSPOST would have helped all of us.
Tiberius - pulling the tail of the left AND right when needed
August 4th, 2012
10:51 pm
“It is clear that the ppl of Atl don’t have a distain for NEW taxes. Just before Reed was elected we raised property tax because we like having firemen and police. We voted to extend the penny sales tax to support our schools as well as another penny for our acient sewers. ”
You just made my case for me, Chris Koch.
You can only go to the well so many times in a down economy.
getalife
August 4th, 2012
10:53 pm
td,
Reagan raised taxes several times. He would be voted out today. The party moved to the radical right. My way or the highway.Just the facts.
Michael H. Smith
August 4th, 2012
10:57 pm
I seriously doubt it, not based on the vote tallies from this one. Wasn’t even close.
You seriously doubt wrong if you are basing your opinion on just tallies. What was put before the voters stank so bad people who wouldn’t agree on the time of day where against it, sixty-seven percent against this TSPLOST was no surprise, anything less might have been.