{"id":1325,"date":"2011-11-01T08:00:00","date_gmt":"2011-11-01T12:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/2011\/11\/t-splost-lunch-and-learn-report-by-matt-portwood.html"},"modified":"2011-11-01T08:00:00","modified_gmt":"2011-11-01T12:00:00","slug":"t-splost-lunch-and-learn-report-by-matt-portwood","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/2011\/11\/t-splost-lunch-and-learn-report-by-matt-portwood.html","title":{"rendered":"T-SPLOST Lunch and Learn report by Matt Portwood"},"content":{"rendered":"Received this morning. -jsq\n
\nToday’s [yesterday now] \nT-SPLOST Lunch and Learn<\/a> was the final event in the city’s\n
<\/td><\/tr><\/table>\ncommunity planning month. The event was hosted by Corey Hull who taught\nthe basics of the state’s 1% transportation sales tax. Hull’s\npowerpoint presentation was apparently the same one he’d spoken on\nseveral times before. As a result there was no new information. However,\nthe presentation was revealing to me, as I’ve not been following the\nstate’s T-SPLOST plans.\n

\nHull spoke for roughly 40 minutes then opened the floor for Q&A. The\naudience quickly split between enthusiastic supporters and opponents. One\nsupporter, a member of the Berrien County Chamber of Commerce vented her\nfrustration over the number of businesses that will be leaving her county\ndue to crumbling roads and out of touch freight centers. As she argued,\nT-SPLOST would allow a smaller community like Nashville to reduce the need\nfor its citizens to travel to Valdosta to shop, providing a much needed\nboost to the local economy. One man, a strong opponent of the tax plan,\ndescribed it as simply a “redistribution of wealth.” As he explained,\nif the T-SPLOST plan were to pass following the July 2012 vote it would\nonly hurt local business owners. Furthermore he claimed that if local\nmunicipalities were to take responsibility for state and federal highway\nmanagement, local governments would retain the costs in the long term.\n

\nHull seemed reluctant to challenge either audience member. Instead he\nfocused on highlighting the basics of the plan. This included explaining\nthe basics of the 75% regional revenue pot and the 25% local discretionary\npot. The approved project list that Hull passed out included plans\nfor improvements to the Five Points intersection, a St. Augustine Road\noverpass, and widening of Jerry Jones Road. Hull explained that this\nwould include both Jerry Jones and Eager Road. I asked Hull about Larry\nHanson’s statement concerning the City of Valdosta’s rule that all\nroad widening projects include a bike lane. Corey Hull explained that\nthe road improvements to Jerry Jones would include a bike lane which\nwould link to the lanes already on Melody Lane and Lankford Dr. This\nwould create a bike lane from St. Augustine Road to N. Oak Street.\n

\n-Matt\n<\/blockquote>\nCorey’s slides are on the SGRC web pages.<\/a>\nThe problem with T-SPLOST is that it forces communities like Nashville\nand Valdosta to all vote on projects that don’t have much relation, with\npenalities for not voting yes.\nThe mayor of Nashville is the chair of the steering committee, and even he\ncomplained that if they didn’t turn in a list of projects by a given time,\nthere was a penalty for that.\nThese penalties are reductions in state transportation funding for other\nexisting projects.\nFor that matter, why should the Jerry Jones bike lane be tied to the\nOld US 41 N widening boondoggle\n\nthat went from $8M to $12M in two months?<\/a>\nNo one will tell us who raised it or why,\nnor who made all these other \nwild swings in estimated costs.<\/a>\n\n<\/a>\nMeanwhile\n\n$7.5M for a bus system<\/a>\nfrom Wiregrass Tech to southside, from Moody to the Mall, by way of VSU,\nVHS, and LHS, has vanished from the list.\n

\nAnyway, regarding yesterday’s event, according to Corey Hull, the City\nof Valdosta was going to video it and Corey will advertise when it will\nappear on the City’s TV channel. For those of us who don’t get\nthat channel, there is some unknown level of possibility the videos\nmay be on the web.\n

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