Ed Baker, publisher of the well-respected Atlanta Business Chronicle and an east Cobb resident, tried to get the early morning crowd of more than 300 into the pro-tax game by slamming lawmakers who oppose the tax — a list that includes about every Cobb Republican lawmaker.
Lawmakers opposing the TSPLOST have to be held accountable “in a different way than before” for undermining the proposed tax’s importance, Baker said.
“I’m sorry as I can be that the politicians that are rearing their ugly heads and being politicians as opposed to public servants,” Baker said. “Generally speaking, they’re taking advantage of the timing from the standpoint of feathering their own nest (in opposing the TSPLOST) as opposed to stepping up and doing the right thing. This isn’t a vote of the politicians. This is a vote of the community. What do they know more than we know? What makes them the expert? I want to know who is in support of economic development and taking care of my back yard versus those who are more interested in typically what politicians do — they’re looking to get re-elected.”
Moderating the discussion was Marietta attorney Heath Garrett, who chairs the Cobb Chamber’s Government Affairs Committee.
Garrett asked the panel to address some of the “myths” surrounding the TSPLOST.
“One of the myths is that many voters don’t trust government to either pick the projects, build the projects on time, deliver them in a fiscally conservative way,” Garrett said.
Baker answered by saying nothing is perfect.
“These are public servants trying to do the right thing,” Baker said, dismissing such negativity as “glass half empty” thinking.
“Atlanta has never been a half-empty market place,” Baker said. “Shame on us for looking at it that way as opposed to trusting the people who have been put in a place of leadership to do the right thing.”
Baker further argued that the only reason there is debate over the TSPLOST is because of the economy.
“If this had been 10 years ago … when the economy was booming and everything was wonderful, and we were lighting our cigars with $5 bills, we wouldn’t be having this big discussion,” he said.
Leaning over to an Around Town contributor, Kennesaw City Councilman Tim Killingsworth whispered that he personally had never lit any cigars with $5 bills.
Baker also argued that the tax money would provide a much-needed stimulus for metro Atlanta.
“The economy in Atlanta is not very good,” Baker said. “It hasn’t been very good. Probably won’t be very good for years to come, and frankly to have a stimulus, a T-SPLOST to be injected into this community at this time, to re-employ a lot of people and to get our economy back in order, hopefully might happen at a time when the economy does indeed improve is something that we need in this market place.”
A second member of the panel, Post Properties CEO Dave Stockert, who is chairing the advocacy campaign called Citizens for Transportation Mobility, attempted to sell the TSPLOST in a different way.
“We don’t have quite the same sex appeal that we once did, and we’ve got to get it back,” Stockert said.
Stockert noted that such sprawling metro areas as Dallas, Houston, Charlotte, northern Virginia and Denver are investing in their transportation infrastructure and Atlanta is not.
“It’s up to us though to carry this thing across the finish line, the business community,” Stockert said. “No one else will do it for us. We’ve got to do it.”
Stockert scoffed at the suggestion that there is a Plan B in the event the tax is voted down, a proposal for which state Reps. Ed Setzler and Rich Golick have advocated. They contend that it would be better to come back with a project list that actually solves traffic congestion in two years if the tax vote fails.
“There’s no plan B out there,” Stockert said. “Everybody who says ‘if we don’t pass this we’ll just come back and have a better list and a better process or whatever,’ that’s just an excuse to lead you down the road to doing nothing, which is what we’ve always done. … To simply suggest that there’s going to be a better solution coming out of a political process is just absolutely naïve, and it will just set us back farther and farther from the places that are actually doing it now.”
Around Town asked Golick, a Smyrna Republican, to weigh in on those comments.
“Personal attacks are never productive, and they speak volumes about the credibility of the individuals or entities making the attack,” Golick said. “Most credible business leaders take the long view and understand that it’s not a good idea to burn bridges with the very people they may need to work with on another transportation initiative in the near future in the event that the people reject the current proposal or if the Supreme Court were to ultimately strike it down as unconstitutional.”
In response to Stockert’s claim of naiveté, Setzler, an Acworth Republican, added: “Pushing the reset button makes far more sense than wasting $3,500 per household on this shameful project list.”
Setzler said the brutal irony is that passing T-SPLOST will actually make traffic worse by consuming the state’s last possible sales tax penny on projects that will not fix Georgia’s traffic problems.
“Do not be deceived … given the billions this TSPLOST will utterly waste, if we’re silly enough to be fooled by this mega ad campaign, we will be stuck in traffic forever,” Setzler said.
While Stockert spoke of “sex appeal” and Baker of keeping a list, the third speaker on the panel, Paul Bennecke, founder of Red Clay Strategies, spoke of shame.
Bennecke said he recently encountered a TSPLOST critic who said he intended to vote no on July 31 because the proposed 10-year tax didn’t do anything to improve his quality of life.
“I said shame on you,” Bennecke told the crowd. “Shame on you for being so selfish. Shame on you for not doing what every other generation before us in American history has done, and that is leave it better than you found it.”
One of the sponsors of Monday’s breakfast, Josh Rowan, a principal engineer with Jacobs Engineering, took to the stage to give a list of pros and cons in voting for the T-SPLOST. His favorite reason to be against the tax, he said, mocking county commission candidate Bill Byrne, was that “this is part of a secret conspiracy that the U.N. has propagated to control our lives,’” a comment that prompted a roar of laughter from the crowd.
Byrne weighed in on those comments, telling Around Town that Jacobs Engineering is a primary consultant of Cobb County “and a big (Cobb Chairman) Tim Lee supporter.”
“They realize what is at stake with this campaign, and they know I am leading the effort to defeat the TSPLOST and they will no longer have a place at the ‘County Trough’ if I prevail,” Byrne said. “Most engineering firms follow the money and they know what the polls are telling them … (the) ‘Untie Atlanta’ marketing proposal continues to fall on deaf ears and failure will come on July 31.
“What else can they do but to mock me in an effort to impact the Chairman’s race and the TSPLOST vote. I am the main obstacle to their success and taking me down has become their primary objective.”
Georgia House Speaker David Ralston (R-Blue Ridge), Speaker Pro Tem Jan Jones (R-Milton) and Majority Leader Larry O’Neal (R-Bonaire) will bring their tour of the state to McCollum Airport on Wednesday.
The trio is travelling the state this week to highlight the accomplishments of the recent legislative session and discuss their agenda for 2013.
Constituents, business leaders and local officials are invited to attend. The event runs from 11 to 11:45 a.m. at the airport, located at 1123 McCollum Parkway in Kennesaw.
The Cobb County Civic Coalition will present a Cobb Commission Chairman candidate forum at 7 p.m. tonight in the Commissioners Meeting Room, located at 100 Cherokee St. in Marietta.
The forum can also be viewed on TV23 and online through TV23 LiveStream at www.CobbCounty.org/tv23.
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And who out there truly believes that $6 billion dollars, handed to politicians, will somehow be wisely spent and will REALLY solve our traffic problems?
ones who count the votes.
If the tally of the votes is close like it was when the "Miracle of 100 Cherokee Street" occurred in the last Cobb transportation SPLOST someone needs to be on alert!!
Lee, DiMassimo and Hankerson can't be trusted!!
I am sure there are other individuals of the same mindset as Mr. Bell. They prefer to be shortsighted and do nothing.
But there are many more like me who oppose this TIA and simply want a chance to resolve the incredible mess that the Roundtable made out of the first project list.
Let's have another go at it and see if we can come up with something that actually makes sense and addresses our regional transportation issues.
But give them some credit.
Thanks to the Roundtable we have identified a lot of the projects that don't pass muster.
That in and of itself is a major step in the right direction of compiling a new project list.
in the tax on everything you buy. Do you really
want this?
What we need is a GDOT with a plan for Georgia's transportation. They need to take a lesson from Texas DOT who purchased the right of way for an outer loop of Houston almost 40 years before it was needed because they had a plan and a vision. Fire GDOT executives and hire some that will develop a plan. That I just might support.
GDOT and the state government didn't do its job, and has concocted this supposedly bottom's up list of improvements that don't address key bottlenecks (like 285/75) - but does provide billions of dollars of To Be Determined fluff.
With all the transportation talent, management talent etc. in Atlanta, certainly the Chairman of the Project Selection Committee was a leader in these areas wasn't he? What's that, no he wasn't, he is what? A RETIRED CAREER BAND DIRECTOR
Please be specific.
There are some good and much needed projects proposed that will effect Cobb, I-20/285, 360 from New Mcland to Paulding county ... Windy Hill @ I-75... Windy Hill @ 41... Windy Hill from 41 to S Cobb drive... 41 from Barrett Pkwy to Bartow County just to mention a few
These projects may not effect you but they effect a lot of other people...
The projects make sense, the method of collection makes sense and the fact that the politicians don't have control of the money, cannot change the list and cannot extend the tax unless the voters approve makes SO much sense.
All of that and we have Citizens oversight and yearly audits and progress reporting.
Smart government of by and for the people.
Do be so naive!!
I am just betting you are one of those voters who believed the "Hope and Change" message of Obama
and
Believed Tim Lee when he said no millage increase if the county voters passed the county TSPLOST.
And now you are falling for the BS being spread by the supporters of this scam.
Unbelievable!!
So you see, good people even within the same party can have a differce of opinion on specific issues like the RTR.
Not sure what you mean about believing Tim Lee regarding TSPLOST and raising the millage rate but I did have a keen understanding of what was happening around the country and the rest of the state with regard to local government budgets. I certainly understood that because of the housing market and the fact that our county government is funded based on home values that we could potentially have to do something drastic. Fortunatly, that was not the case. So to make a tough decision to do a small raise of the rates seemed like a prudent thing to do.
They will be rolled back when things get better. Me personally, I did not see an increase at all in my property taxes this year.
I voted against the TSPLOST.
if i thought the money would be well spent i might have voted for it, local transportation needs improvement.
but i didn't see the benefit for the cost
i sensed the chamber and the powers ready to profit were salivating
i really tried to find reasons to vote for it
but i did not
come back in two years with something better
some good governing instead of a rush to the trough.
less corrupt, please.
---thank you
signed..... a voter
Look at the project list - Atlanta, Fulton and Dekalb get almost all the money; Cobb's share is mostly given to Atlanta and Fulton but is called Cobb's transit system project (note, only a fool will see this as a Cobb project).
If Cobb residents vote yes for this; they must live in the Vinnings area - all other Cobb residents get to sit in traffic.
Be smart folks - VOTE NO
Don't worry, they will come back with a plan "B" better project list in 2 years no matter what the bozo dude I mean Mr. Baker says.
They are either assured of victory or tired and embarassed of trying to defend the indefensible TSPLOST.
Hopefully it is the latter.
I guess their handlers told them to stop trying to rationalize the TSPLOST with their inarticulate and desperate ramblings and leave it up to the "professional" spin doctors and multi million dollars propaganda campaign to try to fool the voters.
Too Bad. It was so much fun to shoot down their weak arguments and their ridiculous, unsubstantiated claims about the miracles that the TSPLOST projects were going to perform in the Atlanta Metro area.
If this notion is truly a "sales tax" which will be collected at the time of purchase; and if it is truly an "option" which means it is an elective and not mandatory; then why not let the individual taxpayer decide at the time of purchase whether or not he/she would elect to pay the additional tax on their purchases?
That way all the high fliers in the Chamber and what not could maximize their civic duty and pay all the optional taxes they want out of their own pockets and leave the rest of us (who are worn out with over taxation) out of the deal completely.
C'mon and come up with a better argument than that.
Your facetious logic is typical of your postings and adds nothing to the debate of this serious issue. Cynical, nonresponsive BS.
Again an increased gas tax, which is a user pays tax, is the most equitable way to pay for transportation improvements.
Obviously if you are putting gasoline or deisel in your vehicle you are utilizing the road infrastructure. The amount of tax you pay is directly proportionate to the amount and frequency of your use of the road infrastructure.
For those of you in Smyrna that means the the more you use it the more you pay.
If you use bus transit you would pay the tax in the form of increased fares.
If you ride rail transit you don't have to pay the tax but the MARTA rail system doesn't receive any of the tax revenues either. They have to make it on their own which means market driven fares.
A sales tax, like the TSPLOST, forces payment whether you use the roads and bus/rail transit or not.
The only real flaw in this method for the citizens of State of Georgia is the fact that the gas tax flows into the mismanaged and incompetent Georgia Department of Transportation.
Solution: Use the same Citizen Oversight Committee concept proposed for the TSPLOST to try to assure accountabilty.
The same reason that Mayor Kasim Reed and Sam Williams (Atlanta Chamber President) are for it.
It's obvious that they and their constituents and associates are going to benefit mightily if it passes.
What mystifies me is why business leaders in Cobb County (the Chamber) and our highest level county elected official (Tim Lee), who are supposed to be looking out for the best interests of Cobb County and its' citizens, would support something that takes 75% of Cobb's $1.2 Billion dollar allocation from the TSPLOST and spend it in the City of Atlanta on a City of Atlanta project for the City of Atlanta.
How could they possibly believe that something like this would be to the benefit of Cobb County?
It just doesn't pass the smell test.
(T)axpayers (S)pend (P)lenty of (L)oot (O)n (S)tupid (T)ransportation.