Hillsborough County contradicts itself in separate court filings involving $500 million

Reposted with permission from Tom Rask, Tampa Bay Guardian

What is to be done with the over $500 million that Hillsborough County unlawfully collected to fund transit? In two separate lawsuits, the county is making contradictory and mutually exclusive arguments.

AFT Lied, AFT Tax Died and AFT Tax Must Not Be Revived!

Take about 12 minutes to watch more from our interview with Dr. Jim Davison about transportation funding in Hillsborough County. 

All for Transportation (AFT) was NOT the only transportation funding plan in town in 2018.

Stop Dumping More Tax Dollars Into Failing Transit Agencies and Transit Services Few Use

Transit ridership was declining across the country before the pandemic, The pandemic, together with innovation and technology has created paradigm shifts away from riding transit.

More telecommuters working from home mean less commuters are on the road or on transit. The "choice" transit rider has disappeared. People prefer the security of their individual vehicles to keep them safe and healthy.

Our local Tampa Bay transit expert Steve Polzin recently did a study about the impact of the pandemic on public transit for Reason stating:

Public transportation is uniquely sensitive to changes in the number of people working from home, changes in commuting patterns, and concerns over public health and safety.

COVID-19 has produced changes in the behavior of individuals, businesses, and governments.

Public transportation is among those sectors disrupted by COVID-19 and unlikely to return to pre-COVID-19 conditions.

Polzin's study found here states transit ridership decreased 65% from April 2020 to April 2021 during this past year of the COVID pandemic. 

Biden Bankrupt America Bill Collides with Opening Our Economy

$2.5- $4 Trillion
Biden Bankrupt America bill

Biden and the Democrats are masquerading their Multi-Trillion Dollar Green New Deal as an “Infrastructure and Jobs" bill. It is actually another Democrat massive porkbarrel Omnibus Spending bill to advance Biden's radical climate change agenda.

But Biden's Big Government Socialist spending agenda is hitting the headwind of good news. All across the country our economy is opening back up providing the opportunities for Americans to get back to work. 

Class Action For Refund of Illegally Collected AFT Tax Dollars Refiled In Leon County

Change of venue for Class Action lawsuit requesting refund of
unlawfully collected AFT tax proceeds

The class action lawsuit requesting a remedy for the over $500 MILLION of illegally collected All for Transportation (AFT) transit tax in Hillsborough County has been refiled in Leon County.

The Florida Department of Revenue, located in Leon County, was always a Defendant in the case. The class action Complaint filed by the Plaintiff in Leon County states that despite pending legal challenges to AFT, the Florida Department of Revenue collected the AFT tax, enforced the AFT tax, charged administrative fees and distributed the tax proceeds minus the admin fees to Hillsborough County.

The Plaintiffs in the class action lawsuit are asking for a refund of all taxes collected under the unlawful AFT transit tax charter amendment.

Committee Bill Filed to Implement Transparency, Election Safeguard Measures Proposed by Governor DeSantis

We posted here that Governor Ron DeSantis has proposed measures to provide transparency and security measures to safeguard our elections in Florida. 

Some of DeSantis proposals are already included in SB90:

• Addressing mail ballot drop boxes
• Measures to prevent ballot harvesting
• No mass mailing of ballots
• Mail ballot requests must be made each election year 
• Signature on mail ballots must match the most recent signature on file.

Now Committee Bill PCB PIE 21-05 has been filed to implement other measures DeSantis proposed. These safeguard measures will ensure transparency in our elections process and reporting:

• Political parties and candidates cannot be shut out of observing the signature validation process
• Supervisor of Elections must post over-vote ballots on their website before the canvassing board meets
• Prohibits the use of private funds for election related expenses, voter education or registration programs (e.g. Zuckerberg grants)
• Requires real time reporting of voter turn out data by precinct level
• Supervisor of Elections must report how many ballots requested, how many received and how many left to be counted
• Mail ballot drop boxes manned by sworn election officials or law enforcement can only be used during the early voting hours of operation and must have video surveillance.
• $25,000 penalty to the Supervisor of Election (SOE) if any mail ballot drop box is accessible for ballot receipt when early voting is not underway

Rebate Unlawful Transit Tax Dollars, Fix Our Roads First and Do Not Trust AFT

The All for Transportation (AFT) unlawful and egregious 2018 rail tax was thrown out by the Florida Supreme Court. 

Sharon Calvert, co-founder of this blog and No Tax For Tracks, was a guest on Saturday's AM860 BrookeTalksAmerica podcast to talk about the illegal AFT transit tax and where to go from here. Take about 15 minutes to listen as Calvert emphasized the paradigm shifts away from traditional transit and costly rail, the need to fix our roads first and stop another wasteful AFT 2.0 rail tax boondoggle.