Sierra Club and Tea Party have produced Plan B for T-SPLOST

Yes, there is a Plan B for T-SPLOST. Two of them, actually, and they are in agreement on several major points.

David Pendered wrote for the Saporta Report yesterday, Called to produce their Plan B, groups detail their alternatives to proposed 1 percent transportation sales tax

Two organized opponents of the proposed 1 percent transportation sales tax said Thursday they are baffled by the allegation by tax advocates that the opponents have not offered an alternative to the tax.

The Sierra Club issued its alternative in writing in April, and members of the Atlanta Tea Party have voiced a consistent set of alternatives since October.

“We have common ground on this issue. There some things we don’t agree on, but we agree that this tax has got to be stopped,” said Debbie Dooley, a co-founder of the Atlanta Tea Party.

Both the Atlanta Tea Party and Sierra Club responded Thursday to a request from SaportaReport.com to provide their alternatives to the referendum. The request came after the campaign for the sales tax challenged them Wednesday to release their solution to relieve traffic congestion, in lieu of the transportation sales tax.

The article includes details of each of their responses, plus this handy list.

Apparent areas of agreement include:
  • 10-county approach to relieving traffic congestion is not the right structure to solve the problem;
  • Money to build congestion-easing transit and transportation projects should come from sources other than a 1 percent sales tax;
  • Existing government entities that work in the transportation arena need to prove they will properly handle major projects.

Existing government entities? Like GDOT, whose “financial management has ranged from terrible to poor for years, according to auditors”? GDOT, which wildly jiggered the costs of the proposed Region 11 T-SPLOST projects with no explanation to the taxpayers as to why? That could help explain why there is a trust problem with T-SPLOST.

Also remember, it is the Georgia Sierra Club, and it opposes T-SPLOST for all twelve regions, not just metro Atlanta. And our local Tea Party here also opposes it, as you can tell by all the signs they’ve been scattering about, and here’s Roy Taylor saying if we want to fund more transportation projects we should consider a gasoline tax, plus opposition across the local political spectrum.

-jsq