Go Hillsborough Cheerleading Begins

Apparently dismayed by the lack of support across the political spectrum, Go Hillsborough supporters have kicked off their private campaign. The headline, and I'm not making this up, is Hillsborough businesses ready to cheer sales tax hike for transportation.

Business organizations are gearing up to lead the campaign to pass a half-cent sales tax for transportation projects if county commissioners agree to put the tax on the November 2016 ballot.

The campaign will begin to come together sometime early next year following a December vote by commissioners to put the measure on the ballot. How the campaign will be structured is unclear, though both business and government leaders expect the business community to be in the forefront.

This comes as no surprise, as multiple Hillsborough County Commissioners have stated on numerous occasions they expect to work with private business to develop an advocacy campaign. Despite their spin, this is just like Moving Hillsborough Forward in 2010, and Friends of Greenlight in 2014.

We know how those turned out.

It does seem rather early, as we're still a few months off from the commission voting to put the sales tax referendum on the ballot. There are still over 50 more community workshops to be scheduled supposedly to gain further constituents input buy votes across the county, led by rail crony Parsons-Brinkerhoff, and their sidekick, Beth Leytham.

“I think we’re looking at how we build a coalition of organizations like ourselves to be out there and talking about this,” said Mickey Jacob, co-chairman of the Greater Tampa Chamber of Commerce transportation council. “We want to be right in the middle of the debate and the discussion.”

Jacob is playing the part he was expected to perform when the County Commission appointed him to the HART Board last year.  The County Commission replaced Steve Polzin, a well recognized transportation expert on the HART board with Jacob, an urban architect and Chamber of Commerce leader. Jacob stated last year when he was appointed to HART

"[W]e have to look at the culture of our community to start to change the behavior of everyone to embrace different modes of transportation, and that’s not an easy process,"

Conveniently, the Tribune did not disclose that Jacob is currently on the HART board.

We wonder how Jacob will balance his position on the HART board with his Go Hillsborough advocacy.

Commissioner Ken Hagan is aware of the conflicts, risks and mistakes that the unethical Greenlight campaign made taking its education advocacy up to the legal edge in 2014.

That won’t happen in Hillsborough, said County Commissioner Ken Hagan, who does not see the Hillsborough Area Transit Authority playing a major role in the Go Hillsborough campaign.

“I do not envision the county or HART being involved in any manner regarding the private-sector campaign; I think that’s dangerous ground,” Hagan said. “I think PSTA ended up making fatal flaw. We want to avoid the self-inflicted grenade even getting remotely close.”

Again, we ask, how will Jacob balance his position on the HART board with his Go Hillsborough advocacy?

But the county may not be completely hands off the campaign.

Hagan said he expects a private-sector campaign committee will be formed after the first of the year to raise money and provide oversight. [County Administrator Mike] Merrill said the group will likely “organize themselves.”

Hagan said he wants to see a citizens advisory committee that includes some neighborhood leaders to advise the campaign’s executive committee.

Will this citizens advisory committee be truly representative of the citizens in Hillsborough County? Will it include those that have expressed grave concerns with the Go Hillsborough plan? Will in include those who voted against the plan in 2010, which failed 42% - 58%?

Why are we still here?  Perhaps a clue from the clueless

Business leaders often back such referendums because of a widely perceived nexus between economic development and a top-flight road and mass transit network. Surveys by economic development groups show the Tampa area’s transportation network is a major drawback in the eyes of out-of-town business leaders considering a move here.

“From my perspective, the issue that keeps coming up over and over is transportation,” said Rick Homans, president and CEO of the Tampa Hillsborough Economic Development Corporation. “And it’s critical we respond and be able to say, ‘Look: We’re doing something about it.’ ”

The problem is they are trying to fix our transportation issues around a politicized, centralized plan to promote economic development rather than solely focusing on improving mobility.

Our leaders have wrapped themselves around the axle of some ill defined mega-plan around "walkable communities", mythical millennials, and neighborhoods that we all can "live, work and play" in.

Fix mobility, then everything else will follow. 

Since 2010, our leaders have accomplished nothing except bloviating and procrastinating on improving our transportation.  They've negligently avoided examining and re-prioritizing the existing budget. With increasing revenues, the County could have developed some incremental projects, identified some quick wins, or proposed increased funding options they can implement without a referendum.  But it would take leadership and expending political capital to do so.  

That's why we are where still here today, where we were in 2010.

The County Commission has accomplished nothing in the last 4 and 1/2 years since the defeat of Moving Hillsborough Forward in 2010.

Now they're planning to do the same thing again.  

The results are predictable.  There is little support for a 30 year sales tax increase, and even less trust in the process.

We ask again.  What is their Plan B?

No Boondoggle Plan - Fix our Roads First

Today the Hillsborough County Transportation Policy Leadership Group is meeting for the first time since their August 12th meeting where they voted to hire a transportation consultant to do "public outreach/engagement". At that meeting they voted without ever discussing what specifically they wanted or expected, how much was public outreach going to cost, how long would the effort be or who was going to pay for it.  They delegated those "minor" details to "staff".

The Eye will be at today's meeting to report afterwards.  Here is the agenda.  

As we previously posted, our county commissioners are handing Parsons Brinckerhoff (PB) a no-bid contract. We reported that PB has given $50K to Greenlight Pinellas, they hosted an event in Tampa for the pro rail PAC, Yes for Greenlight last month, gave $25K in 2010 to the pro rail PAC Moving Hillsborough Forward and the former Executive Director for TBARTA, Bob Clifford, went to work for them in June.

From the agenda, the contract to PB is bigger than just validating cost estimates for the $15 Billion wish list of projects on the County Commission Transportation and Economic Development website and doing public outreach.  PB is going to write our county's transportation plan and then sell it to the public. 

Timeline for Transportation Plan (click to enlarge)

We noticed that Charlotte was conveniently left off this chart touting cities PB has apparently worked with to develop their transportation plans. PB wrote Charlotte's transportation plan that led to their light rail sales tax referendum passing and PB benefitting from the project with huge cost overruns to the taxpayers of Charlotte's Mecklinburg County.  

PB touts cities  - where's Charlotte?

Parsons Brinckerhoff is apparently going to mirror their public engagement to what was done by the city of Tampa for their strategic master plan for the urban core called InVisionTampa. George Walton from PB participated in that effort and it appears he will be leading the transportation public outreach effort for the County. Find all who participated in the InVisionTampa process starting on page 4 of their report and lo and behold Mickey Jacob, the recent HART board appointee, was a participant....Surprised?

The technique used by the MPO and the Planning Commission for gaining consensus within various groups and organizations appears was also used in the InVisionTampa process - the Delphi Technique.

To begin the workshop, the Project Team gave a presentation about the study covering the goals, schedule, and methods for public interaction. Following the presentation, a series of exercises were held. The attendees were divided into smaller, equally-sized groups.

We expect PB will use this same consensus building technique on targeted groups.  

The Communications Framework on the BOCC website lists all the "tools" they want to use for public engagement. It also states what must be the "real" agenda of the PLG - to "create a more balanced transportation system". 

PLG wants to "create" more balanced transportation system (click to enlarge)

Now look at the cost to taxpayers,  Hillsborough County taxpayers are going to pay PB via a no-bid contract almost $900K to write our transportation plan and engage the public, using the Delphi technique to build consensus within various groups and organizations.  

Cost to taxpayer for PB work via a no-bid contract

Is this the "Greenlight Pinellas" like plan for Hillsborough? 

Instead of using a PR firm, Hillsborough County will hand Parsons Brinckerhoff, who has a history of huge cost overruns, a no bid contract to do this work.

Of course this use of $900K of taxpayer dollars does NOT include the taxpayer funded marketing campaign (noted as "public education") that will ensue from taxpayer funded entities, unelected bureaucrats and elected officials. It also does not include the private sector PAC (noted as private sector advocacy) that will also ensue (like the current pro rail Yes for Greenlight PAC and Moving Hillsborough Forward PAC in 2010) filled with deep pocketed special interests who will benefit.

Every survey taken since 2010 referendum was defeated confirms the highest transportation priority in Hillsborough County is roads.  For a county of 1.3 million residents, Hillsborough County has a measly $6.5 Million for county roads in our FY 2015 budget. We can't fill our potholes or maintain our existing infrastructure. Where is this $900K of county taxpayer money being paid to PB magically coming from? $900K is almost 14% of our entire county road budget for 2015.

It doesn't take a million taxpayer dollars paid to special interest PB to figure out we need to fix and fund our roads first. We do not want to pay for another PB boondoggle plan.

Why are our roads being willfully neglected while the "powers to be" keep pushing costly transit solutions that require coercively redesigning our county at taxpayer expense?

We have plenty of champions for transit and costly rail solutions on the Policy Leadership Group. They cannot ignore the AECOM transit study done in May the Tribune conveniently failed to report about, that Hillsborough County should invest in transit solutions cautiously and prudently. 

98% of us use our roads everyday in Hillsborough County, including our buses. 

We should not have to wait years to fix our roads.  

We need a champion for our roads NOW!

Change the Behavior of Everyone

Recently the Hillsborough County Commission reappointed Karen Jaroch and Wallace Bowers to the HART board.  Steve Polzin, a real transportation expert, was not reappointed.

Polzin is not your average HART board member. Currently the Transit Research Program Director for the Center for Urban Transportation Research (CUTR) located on the USF Tampa campus, he has served in transit agencies in Dallas and Cleveland prior to coming to Tampa. His reign on the HART board was one of the longest as well, having been named to serve back in February of 2008.

Polzin is a real expert in the field of transportation, and his insight will be missed.

He was replaced by Mickey Jacob, an Executive Vice President of BDG Architects in Tampa. Jacob has been an architect in Tampa for 30 years.

Jacob has traveled the world in his architecture work, and his travels confirm everyone wants the same stuff:

"They want good transportation. They want a healthy lifestyle, great education, prosperity. Everyone wants the same stuff," he says. It's also allowed him how to see other regions handle transportation, something that nobody would dispute needs improvement in Hillsborough County.

"I don’t think anyone will disagree that we have a car-centric transportation system here, and it's a cultural issue, we have to look at the culture of our community to start to change the behavior of everyone to embrace different modes of transportation, and that’s not an easy process," he says.

"Change the behavior of everyone"?

That's interesting, if a bit alarming.  Will there be some behavioral training to ensure the masses behave as he expects? Mr. Jacob, can you elaborate on your best guidance and insight how to change the behavior of everyone so they will embrace the approved modes of transportation from the department of Central Planning?

I know that's not an easy process. It's not an easy question either.

Mr. Jacob, can we focus on improving mobility in the modes that the residents of Hillsborough overwhelmingly prefer?  How did we go from a mission of improving mobility to changing the behavior of everyone?

"I think HART is going to be the key element in our transportation strategy as we move forward in the next decade or two in the county and in our region," he told CL on Wednesday. "They are going to be an integral part of solving our mobility problem, and I think as an architect, as someone who's been involved in urban planning, I’m a huge proponent of creating the urban density necessary to support our public transition systems, and improve them, including rubber-wheel transit, rail transit. All these things that great cities have that I believe our city needs to have. And I think it’s a great opportunity to use my expertise as an architect and bring that to the board."

"I'm a huge proponent of creating the urban density necessary to support our public transition (sic) systems" ?

Hillsborough County Urban Density map

Click here for the full Hillsborough County Urban Density map.

If Jacob is a huge proponent of increasing urban density, where in Hillsborough does he support increasing urban density to support public transit... including rail transit? How many more people than the 1206 average per square mile in Hillsborough does he believe is optimal? Which neighborhoods of Tampa or Hillsborough County will he target for increased congestion densification?  Sulfur Springs or Hyde Park?  Why not improve the mobility of people where they are now?

Which is easier -- making solutions fit the problem, or making the problems fit the solutions we like? Which will be less expensive?

He's got some ideas and vision how you should live.  But it's really not the same as the same stuff we all want.

Jacob seems to prefer the world as he wants it be, rather than the world as it is, the real one the rest of us live in.  Just listen to wise men like Jacob, look in the mirror, admit your transgressions, change your behavior, and all will be fine.

Perhaps he'll change his behavior.  That should be easier than changing the behavior of everyone.

Don't bet on it.