Many groups did a great job of putting together factual information and getting the information out to the public without much money. The Traffic Truth group, Tea Party groups, along with the Sierra Club and NAACP, plus the phenomenal analysis performed by the Georgia Public Policy Foundation and Reason Foundation, and numerous state legislators who were outraged over the projects list, all worked together to inform the public about many things that were wrong with the TSPLOST. Several columnists also helped.
The TSPLOST dollars were supposed to go toward reducing traffic congestion. Pro-TSPLOST ads claimed people would have more time with their families. Voters figured out that the pro-TSPLOST hype was false, and that too much of the money was going to benefit special interests, and would not reduce traffic congestion.
Meanwhile, Cobb still faces the hazard of the ongoing “alternatives analysis” transit study (the “AA”).
The TSPLOST vote did not cancel the AA, and does not prevent the AA from recommending light rail. While voter rejection of the TSPLOST makes funding for this boondoggle far more difficult, the special interests who want light rail will continue to try to bamboozle the region into building it.
We already have transit on Cobb Parkway. The only purpose of light rail on Cobb Parkway is to get taxpayers to pay for “incentivizing” the redevelopment of private property. It would not reduce traffic congestion in Cobb, and it would do nothing to better meet the transportation needs of Cobb County.
Light rail would be staggeringly expensive to operate and maintain forever. It will consume all available transit dollars that might have otherwise been available for other needed transit elsewhere in Cobb.
Cobb voted 69-to-31 percent to oppose spending $689 million to enhance transit service on Cobb Parkway. Light rail from Acworth to Atlanta would cost at least $3 billion.
On July 24, one week prior to the TSPLOST vote, and also prior to the conclusion of the AA, the Cobb Board of Commissioners voted 4-1 to approve a new $3 million contract for a new Environmental Impact study to move forward with whatever transit is recommended by the AA. Commissioner Bob Ott strenuously opposed this action, and correctly pointed out that it was premature to initiate an Environmental Impact study when the AA had not yet identified what would be studied.
Why couldn’t this $3 million new study have waited until after the TSPLOST vote? And why are we moving forward with an Environmental Impact study when we supposedly don’t yet know the pre-determined outcome of the current $1.7 million AA study? This is one more piece of evidence that the AA study was a sham with a predetermined conclusion.
This is fiscal irresponsibility on steroids.
Why is Cobb County insisting on funding this new study to move forward on a project that the overwhelming majority of Cobb voters have overwhelmingly voted against? (Washington would pay $2.4 million of our tax dollars, and Cobb would pay $600,000 of our tax dollars for this new study for a project that the citizens of Cobb County oppose.)
On July 24, it might not have been clear that the TSPLOST would fail region-wide, but it was unquestionably going to fail big in Cobb. To put this $3 million item on the agenda for July 24 was very, very, very wrong.
There may be reasons why Cobb County might have ultimately needed to do an environmental impact study. But right now, we supposedly do not know what the alternatives analysis will recommend, and the course of the environmental impact study could be very different based on different conclusions of the alternatives analysis.
In addition, proponents of the alternatives analysis study pointed out that the conclusions of the Northwest Connectivity Study were more than five years old and therefore not usable for the purpose of obtaining federal funding. According to Gov. Nathan Deal, rail transit is now dead going forward. So, if the alternatives analysis recommends light rail, then the environmental impact study will spend $3 million of our tax dollars to study something that cannot be implemented and will ultimately wind up just as obsolete and useless as the NWCS.
I am asking all Cobb County commissioners to provide guidance to those running the current study, that the alternatives analysis should focus only on transit that
n can provide the fastest commute times
n at the lowest cost for taxpayers
n with the flexibility to connect to various destinations (not just downtown Atlanta)
n without regard to incentivizing the redevelopment of private property, and
n focused on cost-effectively meeting the transportation needs of the citizens of Cobb County.
Spending $3 million for this study at this time is just plain wrong.
Ron Sifen of Vinings is president of the Cobb County Civic Coalition. His views do not necessarily reflect the views of the CCCC.
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Guess it will be like those years O.J. Simpson spent looking for the killer of his wife on the golf course. Not in this hole, guess we gotta play another.
Total sham!
If you had actually listened to Ron or Ed before the TSPLOST vote, you would not be whining stupid stuff in the MDJ today.
It always shows when someone is letting the dumb masses of the chamber of commerce tell them what to think.
Thanks Ron and Ed!
Now where is that Plan B?
Your response was so full of the same errors and misrepresentations that were so unsuccessfully touted during the TSPLOST debate there are growing tiresome.
The project list that was formulated by the Roundtable was 90% non-regional oriented projects.
Those projects did little or nothing to effectively address regional mobility or regional congestion.
That, among other legitimate reasons, is why the TSPLOST failed.
You are right about one thing.
The problems are still there and still need to be addressed.
We have spent a lot of time and money determining what will not work.
At least we have managed to determine who not to trust and which projects won't work.
Let's get back to the drawing table and come up with something that makes sense.
The possible project list the 21 member regional roundtable for the Atlanta 10 County Region, which is the ARC Region, consisted of projects in excess of 70 billion dollars in regional projects. They whittled that list down to 6.5 billion of regional projects.
The needs were and still are great, the revenue resources are few and limited. They were only limited by the projected revenue a 1 cent sales tax could generate in 10 years and what projects could be completed or at the very minimum started within that projected timeframe.
We are in the ARC region all of the projects were part of the ARC projects plan as it should be.
Something outside of that list could and would have been properly defined as a "pet project" as it was not on an already approved list of projects.
Here is the exact language from the approved assessment criteria:
Projects should come from existing plans and/or studies (for example, the GDOT work program, ARC long range plan and short range program, ARC Congestion Management Process, county transportation studies, etc.).
So to a certain extent you are right.
They do have to come from existing studies, but the Roundtable members intentionally limited themselves to only the ARC TIP projects and as a result limited the available pool of potential projects significantly.
Again, they "gamed" the project list and manipulated it to ionclude a huge number of pet projects.
An honest and objective assessment was dismissed in favor of a list aka slush fund that was a boon to political ambitions and special interst groups.
That's why I say the next time around we can do it right if we exclude the "payoff" projects in favor of those that actually address regional transportation and congestion issues.
I don't know why you insist on defending the crooks who put this list together?
Unless of course you are one of the guilty parties.
So, if you have a problem with the projects on the project lists and all of them had to be projects from existing plans, according to the TIA legislation, then you either have a problem with the TIA legislation or you don't know what you are talking about.
It wasn't the financing mechanism nor the intent of the TIA legislation that was flawed.
It was the horrendous project list and the self serving people that put the project list together that doomed the referendum.
Criticize the opponents of TSPLOST all you want, but everyone knows where the blame for its' failure belongs.
Enjoy!
We actually have a good start on Plan B at our fingertips.
First, all we have to do is eliminate about 90% of the projects on the original project list and start from there.
Secondly prevent any of the Roundtable members who created the first project list from participating in the formulation of Plan B.
Start from there and we might be able to come up with something that makes sense.
The Roundtable made up their own parameters about project selection. It wasn'r specifically dictated by the TIA legislation
That's where the manipulation and corruption of the legislation started.
Never mind that neither one should have been undertaken prior to the TSPLOST vote.
This was a blatant and ill advised PAYOFF by DiMassimo and Lee to their consultant cronies.
These two have irresponsibly squandered Cobb County's time and money trying to force a project on the citizens and taxpayers.
They are zealously trying to push light rail down the throat of Cobb County citizens.
Even in light of overwhelming opposition by the citizens of Cobb County who want nothing to do with their "vision" certain individuals insist on moving forward and spending millions to promote their agenda.
Their enthusiasm is fueled by their personal greed and ambition not by their desire to do what is best for our community.
They are an example of out of control bureaucrats and self annointed leaders that believe that their ideas are superior to the will of the people.
They think they are smarter than everyone else.
Hopefully some major changes will occur inn the near future that will facilitate the necessary changes in leadership in our community that will allow us to regain control of our future.
The city of East Cobb is starting to look much better. We can decide on new employees whose pay and benefits more closely follow the private industry standards and provide real value for their work. For instance, judging from abandoned properties throughout Cobb, Code Enforcement must be asleep at the wheel. A Parks Department car visited my neighborhood, small and a dead end without any parks at 10 am the other day.
Pull the money from East Cobb properties and Cobb will dry up - and that AA study would not even be possible. To waste this money after the millions spent to support T-SPLOST and its major failure should have clearly spoken to Mr. Lee and the rest of the Commission. They just are not listening to us.