State Must Pass Hillsborough County Sales Tax Holiday, NOT Reward AFT Wrong-Doers, Mischief Makers and Lawsuit Losers

All for Transportation's (AFT) wealthy special interests donors are at it again. They want to again deny Hillsborough County taxpayers a sales tax holiday that will return $600M of illegally collected AFT sales tax dollars back to the taxpayers.

Give Our Money Back! Hillsborough County Opposes Taxpayer Refund AGAIN as AFT's $570 MILLION Refund Fiasco Continues

The Hillsborough County $570 Million All for Transportation (AFT) refund legal fiasco continues. 

Over 2.5 years ago, the AFT transit tax was ruled illegal and thrown out in its entirety. The AFT transit tax refund remedy has not yet been resolved. 

Give Hillsborough County a $570M Sales Tax Holiday, Do Not Reward Any Wrong-doers

It's way beyond time for Hillsborough County taxpayers to get back the $570M of illegal All for Transportation (AFT) tax dollars unlawfully taken from them. It's been over two years since the Florida Supreme Court ruled that AFT was unlawful in February 2021.  

Finally, House Bill 7063 (starting at line 893) provides a final remedy to the big legal mess AFT created. HB7063 includes a provision for a sales tax holiday to be implemented when a final adjudication has been made that a local sales tax referendum is ruled unlawful and illegal. 

Lack of Proper Legal Oversight: Unlawful AFT Transit Tax Costs Taxpayers Over $1.1 Million in Outside Legal Fees

Both All for Transportation (AFT) transit tax referendums, in 2018 and in 2022, were ruled illegal by the Courts. As a result, taxpayers got stuck paying for costly outside legal counsel.

In 2018 warnings were raised by then county commissioner Stacy White and others that AFT's citizen wealthy special interests led transit tax had potential legal issues. 

Those warnings went unheeded by Hillsborough County Attorney Christine Beck and HART's legal counsel Davis Smith. 

Florida's Inspector General Needs to Investigate and Financially Audit Fiscally Failing HART Transit Agency

 

HART transit agency is a big mess and is going insolvent. The State needs to step in to investigate HART's financial mismanagement and do an independent audit of HART.

Hillsborough County's Use of Taxpayer Money To Fund A Transit Tax Campaign Adds to AFT's Three Ring Circus

The All for Transportation (AFT) $23B Transit Tax Hike is now a three ring circus. 

Blame for this circus is with the Tampa Centric 5 commissioners - Kimberly Overman, Harry Cohen, Mariella Smith, Pat Kemp and Gwen Myers - who put the misleading and deceptive tax hike on the ballot. 

The tainted referendum remains on the ballot due to the County's appeal, even though local media and even the SOE were telling voters the transit tax was not valid.

The County's $700K contract with engineering firm HNTB to launch and manage a taxpayer funded campaign associated with the transit tax may also be polluting the transit tax hike.

Tampa Centric 5 Turns AFT Transit Tax into Three Ring Circus: Just Vote NO and Defeat It At the Ballot Box

The Tampa Centric 5 Hillsborough County Commissioners (Overman, Cohen, Smith, Myers, Kemp) are responsible for putting the deceptive $23 Billion All for Transportation (AFT) transit tax on the November ballot. They are responsible and the reason why a legal challenge was filed against the AFT tax hike.

Go On Offense and Take No Risk: Vote NO on AFT Tax Hike at Bottom of the Nov. Ballot

Go on offense Hillsborough County voters. 

Vote NO on the misleading and deceptive All for Transportation (AFT) $23 BILLION transit tax hike on the November ballot. 

Taxpayers must not find themselves in another precarious position where unlawful tax dollars are collected from them again.

Stop the abusive use of misleading tax hike ballot summary language for political gain! 

On October 10th, Circuit Court Judge Anne-Leigh Gaylord Moe ruled the massive transit tax was misleading and confusing and therefore unlawful. She removed the tax hike referendum from the ballot.

The same feckless Tampa Centric 5 Democrat county commissioners who put the misleading and confusing AFT transit tax on the ballot voted to hire expensive outside lawyers to appeal Moe's ruling.  

Judge Moe has called a hearing for tomorrow, October 27th at 2:30pm. Oral arguments from both sides will be heard regarding the Plaintiff's Motion to Vacate the Automatic Stay Pending Appeal.

Moe's October 10th ruling came as hundreds of thousands of mail ballots had been sent out and voters were already voting. Voters were swamped with heavy local media coverage of the Judge's ruling with headlines declaring the Judge "rejects, nullifies, removes, blocks, throws off" the AFT transit tax referendum from the ballot.

The AFT tax hike referendum is now tainted. It is reasonable to believe that confidence in the integrity of the referendum election results is now in question. 

The County is telling voters to keep voting on the tainted AFT transit tax referendum that is still printed at the bottom of the November ballot.

So go on offense.

Take NO Risk ending up with another $600M refund mess like the 2018 illegal AFT tax hike. 

Vote NO on the All for Transportation (AFT) sales tax referendum at the bottom of the November ballot. 

AFT's Special Interests Donors Call In Their Chits But Judge's Ruling Taints AFT Tax Hike So Take NO Risk and VOTE NO!

AFT Monopoly Men 

Monday the All for Transportation supporters struck out again. Circuit Court Judge Gaylord Moe ruled the All for Transportation (AFT) Sales Tax Hike ballot language is misleading and confusing to voters and struck the referendum from the November ballot. 

Now AFT's wealthy special interests donors are calling in their Chits.  

AFT's rich monopoly men, with money bags in tow, are wanting their donor favors returned and a "return on investment" of the donor dollars they have waged on Overman, Cohen, Smith, Myers and All for Transportation.

Yesterday Hillsborough County commissioner Gwen Myers told the Tampa Bay Times  the County will appeal the judge's ruling. 

We’re going to appeal this and ask voters to keep voting for this while it’s on the ballot now,” said Myers.

Myers, who has championed the tax referendum since her 2020 election to the commission, initially said she would consider scheduling a special election if an appeal is successful.

But Gwen Myers does not speak for all 7 commissioners. The county commissioners have not met yet to discuss the appeal issue and Florida Statute 212.055 requires all local sales surtax referenda must be held in a general election.

BOCC Chair Kimberly Overman released a statement yesterday calling for a special BOCC meeting for Thursday, October 13, 2022 at 5pm. Her statement yesterday, October 11, 2022, was incompetently dated August 4, 2022. 

Citizens can sign up to make public comment virtually or at the meeting tomorrow or send a written comment here.

Overman's statement claims:

We cannot afford to wait another 2 years to find relief for those who need these transportation improvements the most. 

We cannot continue with the status quo.

The status quo is the County being negligent, incompetent and not properly funding the County's transportation needs.

The damaging status quo is because Overman and the 4 other commissioners (Cohen, Smith, Myers and Kemp), who put the AFT sales tax hike on the ballot, eliminated the 2017 $840 Million 10 year transportation funding policy. 

The damaging status quo is because these 5 commissioners eliminated a 10 year  transportation plan funded by using the growth of existing revenues. 

Public safety and infrastructure are the top priorities and responsibilities of all local government. Roads are the largest infrastructure asset the County owns. 

Overman and the other 4 commissioners have failed to do their job. They have failed to properly fund a primary responsibility of county government.

These 5 commissioners prefer massive new tax hikes at a time of raging inflation instead of doing their job and making the hard budget decisions the rest of us must make everyday. 

What is sobering is all the special interests including Jeff Vinik, Darryl Shaw, Ron Christaldi and Tampa General, who have dumped thousands of dollars into Overman, Smith, Cohen and Myers campaigns. 

What is alarming is these wealthy special interests are financially supporting commissioners who have failed to do their job. The special interests would never run their own businesses or household budgets with such neglect and incompetence these 5 commissioners have for years imposed on the taxpayers of Hillsborough County.

The special interests refuse to hold the 5 commissioners accountable for their negligence. Instead they buy influence.

Money talks and now the special interests are calling in their chits. 

They want the County to waste your tax dollars to appeal Monday's ruling. 

Protect your wallet. Do not allow another illegal AFT sales tax create another AFT big huge refund issue. 

Taxpayers must NOT be put at risk of having illegal sales tax dollars taken from them AGAIN.

Take NO risk with the AFT sales tax printed on your ballot.    

Just Vote NO! 

Breaking: All for Transportation Sales Tax Ballot Measure Violates Hillsborough County Charter

The All for Transportation (AFT) Sales Tax Ballot Measure on the Hillsborough County November ballot violates Section 8.05 of the County's Charter. 

Section 8.05 requires that all County referendums include a Financial Impact Statement (FIS) in the referendum's ballot summary language. The FIS is not included in the AFT sales tax ballot measure. 

FACTS Expose the Deceptive Pro Rail Tax Disinformation Campaign

Guest post from Dr. Jim Davison who has been involved in the transportation issue in Hillsborough County for over 25 years

Voters in Hillsborough County have been getting mailers from All For Transportation (AFT) extolling their plan for transportation and what a $23 billion sales tax will do for you. 

AFT says their claims are based on the Hillsborough County Transportation Planning Organization (TPO) 4 year old 2045 20 year Long Range Transportation Plan (LRTP). 

AFT uses their massive 30 year tax to fund an outdated 20 year TPO plan. That is certainly deceptive. But is using a 30 year tax to fund a 20 year plan also fraudulent? 

Let us look at AFT's claims and determine the facts. 

Claim: 700,000 people are moving to Hillsborough County

Fact: Yes, we all know Hillsborough County is great place to live, but what part of the county are they moving to? The vast majority of the increased population in Hillsborough County will be to the unincorporated areas, > 500,000 of the 700,000. Only about 100,00 to the city of Tampa.

Claim: We All benefit from the sales tax and the AFT plan

Fact: AFT states the tax is split 3 ways; 45% to Transit (HART), 54.5% for roads and 0.5% for planning. That statement is misleading. The Mobility Director for the city of Tampa presented the real split to the BOCC; 45% to HART, 39.9% to Hillsborough County, 12% to Tampa and 2.1% to Plant City & Temple Terrace. This is the actual way the revenues will be split and then the different governments will spend the money how they see fit. Hillsborough County with 70% of the present population and growing by over 500,000 more people will get only 40% of the sales tax. HART with less than 2% of commuters gets 45%. Greater than 50% of the sales tax will be spent within the City of Tampa. Some benefit more than others....like Animal Farm.

Claim: Less Traffic. You will be home in time for dinner.

Fact: The Transportation Planning Organization’s (TPO) own studies show a 4 to 5 minutes increase in the average commute and a 295% increase in vehicle hours of delay. You are going to be late with this Plan.

Claim: Safer Roads. A 35% decrease in crashes and fatalities.

Fact: The TPO’s own studies show that there is no difference in the number of crashes and deaths on Local Roads with or without the tax. Yes, the same amount. The TPO also used revenues not available for their use in safety study and did not include the increase in crashes and deaths that rail and rail stations will have on the road network. Deaths on our roads have gone up despite many cars off the road during the pandemic.

Claim: Citizen Oversight. Another Big Lie.

Fact: The AFT Plan calls for and Independent Oversight Committee to be formed and paid for only by the County. The make-up of the committee will include 3 members each appointed by HART, the County and City of Tampa (9 members). Hillsborough County with 70% of the population, Tampa with 27% of the population and HART, a transit agency with 2% ridership, have equal representation. Plant City and Temple Terrace have one member each. This is what AFT calls "fair" representation. 

It is not an "Independent" Oversight Committee because the same people who put the $23 Billion tax on the ballot are the same people who will be appointing their members to the committee.  

The only redeeming aspect of this Committee is that they have no power to do anything about how the tax funds are spent - only the county commissioners can make those decisions. The Committee is just another “advisory” bureaucracy taxpayers will be forced to pay for.

All For Transportation states their plan will fix our roads and sidewalks.

Truth lies in an April 19, 2022 memo that John Lyons, the Director of Public Works sent to the Hillsborough County commissioners. Lyons tells the commissioners that with the 30 year $23 Billion sales tax and the allocations per Ordinance 22-9 roads would only be resurfaced once every 30 years. 

The TPO states that with a schedule of repaving once every 28 years the county will have a $1 billion deficit in road maintenance in the next 20 years. 

THE ROADS WILL GET WORSE THAN THEY ARE NOW WITH THE SALES TAX ORDINANCE.

This is just a sampling of the disinformation and outright lies All For Transportation and their rich financial backers are trying to sell the voters.

Do yourself, your neighbors and your Community a favor:

    Demand the Truth. 

    Demand a Reprioritization of Existing Record Revenues. 

    Demand the County FIX Our Roads First.

And Fight an inflationary Tax:  VOTE NO on the Sales Tax Hike in November!

Voters Not Supporting Pro Rail Tax Campaign, AFT's Claim They Are "Community" Supported Rated Liar Liar Pants On Fire False

Pro Rail Tax PAC All for Transportation (AFT) claims they are a "citizen-led" effort supported by the "Community". 

That is not true! Voters are already rejecting the $23 BILLION Rail Tax by not supporting AFT's Pro Tax campaign.

Every single donor to the Pro Rail Tax PAC All for Transportation (AFT) is a special interest - according to AFT's latest campaign filings found on the SOE website (select Political Committee Reports from the drop down).

Not one voter or one individual has donated to AFT to support AFT'S $23 BILLION Rail Tax campaign of deception.

About that $23 BILLION Rail Tax: Duping Voters With Misleading, Filtered Information and Distorted Facts

How does one dupe voters?

By censoring, filtering information, making misleading claims and falsely telling voters their massive Rail Tax fixes everything.

Lawsuit Filed Alleging Hillsborough County Rail Tax Ballot Language is Unlawful

 A lawsuit was filed Wednesday in Hillsborough County by Plaintiff Karen Jaroch challenging the 30 year ONE PERCENT rail/transit tax ballot language on the November ballot. The lawsuit alleges the ballot language is unlawful and deceitful and should be removed from the ballot.

The lawsuit filed in the 13th Circuit Court is case #22-CA-007158. The Complaint can be found at the Hillsborough County Clerk of the Court website here by searching on the case number. The Complaint can also be found here.

The Complaint asks that the rail tax ballot language be ruled defective and the County and the Supervisor of Elections prohibited from placing the ballot title and summary language on the November ballot.

Deja Vu! Clip from 2018 Interview by Chris Ingram about Rail Tax Boondoggles

It's Deja Vu! Below is a clip from my interview with Chris Ingram in October 2018 about All for Transportation's 2018 rail tax boondoggle. 

2010, 2014, 2016 (did not get on ballot due to Go Hillsborough scandal), 2018 and now 2022. The same wealthy donor class cronies keeps pushing rail tax boondoggles on taxpayers that will greatly benefit them. They and their rail activist allies are at it again in 2022.

Follow the Money! As the Rail Cartel Hamster Wheel Pumps Again Hillsborough County Launches Another Fraudulent Tax Hike Scam

Deja Vu Hillsborough County!  

The cronies are pumping their rail tax hamster wheel again.  

It's 2010, 2016 and 2018 in Hillsborough all over.

Instead of the County directly using Parsons Brinkerhoff and local PR crony Beth Leytham as they did with the 2016 Go Hillsborough rail tax hike scam, this go round the County just merged with the All for Transportation Transit (AFT) rail cartel cronies. The County is shamefully rewarding the very same people who funded the illegal AFT rail tax. 

Hold On To Your Wallets Hillsborough County! AFT Rail Tax Charade 2.0 is On Its Way

Hold onto your Wallets! The Tampa Bay rail cartel are at it again.

The Tampa Centric Five Democrats have the votes to put AFT 2.0, another 30 year, 1%, $16B (probably $18B now) rail tax on the ballot in November. Democrat commissioner Pat Kemp told us this last September. Having the votes is all they care about - silly little things such as refunding the illegally taken $521 MILLION AFT funds and getting real public input don't matter.   

It's a done deal. The Vinik bailed out Tampa Bay Times confirmed what we already knew:

The county scheduled a series of community meetings beginning next month in anticipation of a proposed sales tax referendum on the November ballot.

The Town Hall meetings charade the commissioners planned to have last year have been rescheduled. As we noted before, the commissioners ignore the fastest growing area in Hillsborough, South County, where they scheduled NO meetings.

It looks like the County renamed these meetings to "Open Houses" because they are NOT Town Hall meetings where those who attend get to publicly speak.

What is an Open House? It's an "informal" event for the public to "drop by" anytime during the hours of the Open House to view an exhibition or whatever the Open House "host" is trying to sell the public. 

These meetings are to sell the public that the County has no money to fund transportation in the County. That is a lie and we've seen that rodeo before.

Tampa Centric 5 Must Have No Say In AFT $521M Refund "Hot Mess" They Helped Create, Four Can Be Voted Out Next Year

All for Transportation "hot mess" Dumpster Fire 

The Tampa Centric Five Hillsborough County commissioners were staunch supporters of the unlawful All for Transportation Transit (AFT) $16B rail tax in 2018. Commissioners Pat Kemp, Kimberly Overman, Mariella Smith, Harry Cohen and Gwen Myers, all Democrats, aided and abetted AFT's shameful activity of putting an illegal rail tax hike on the ballot and misleading the voting public. 

Tampa Centric 5 Decide To Put AFT 2.0 Rail Tax on 2022 Ballot Before Any Public Meetings Held or Unlawful AFT Dollars Refunded, Kemp Falsely Claims County Has No Money for Transportation

The gaslighting on Hillsborough County's transportation issue continues with Hillsborough County commission Chair Pat Kemp. She publicly stated "there is no money" to fund transportation in Hillsborough County.

That is gaslighting rhetoric and NOT true. We're left wondering whether Kemp understands the County's budget, understands basic math or just prefers throwing tax dollars out the window.

The Charade for AFT Rail Tax 2.0 Begins as County Knows 89% Want Roads Fixed

Pat Kemp, Kimberly Overman, 
Harry Cohen, Gwen Myers, Mariella Smith

Before one cent of the unlawful All for Transportation Transit tax has been refunded, the Tampa-Centric Five push to put All for Transportation Transit 2.0 rail tax on the 2022 ballot. 

Hillsborough County had scheduled 4 Transportation Town Hall meetings to begin on August 3rd. These Town Halls appear to now be delayed until October.  

South County, one of the fastest growing areas of Hillsborough County that needs new roads, is ignored.