Long went after two of her biggest and most vocal critics Tom Rask and Barb Haselden both long-time activists in the public transit arena.
St. Petersburg Fl
Opinion by: E. Eugene Webb PhD
Author: In Search of Robin
As Commissioner Janet Long attempts to
push her regional transit authority idea forward, dissent is mounting. See saintpetersblog,
Mitch Perry, Janet Long
lashes out at transit critics and my post Bay
Area Regional Transit Authority – Janet Long's Dream to Tax you more.
Long has been continually frustrated by
failed attempts to get a sales tax referendum passed in Pinellas County so a guaranteed
flow of money will be available for pet transportation projects.
A classic example of these regional
transit authorities is TBARTA of which Long said, “I don’t know if you’ve been
to a TBARTA board meeting, but I thought I was going to eat my brains out!” It
is four hours of — excuse my expression — bullsh*t. All you do is listen to one
study after another study after another presentation, and on and on. They don’t
do anything!”
Well said Commissioner. And what makes
you think your new taxing authority would be any different?
Long went after two of her biggest and
most vocal critics Tom Rask and Barb Haselden both long-time activists in the
public transit arena.
Rask and Haselden were both highly
active in the failed Pinellas transit sales tax efforts and Long has never
really gotten over the Greenlight debacle.
“I really paid attention when
Greenlight failed,” Long says, referring to the 2014 Greenlight Pinellas
transit tax that went down to defeat. “It frustrates me beyond belief when the
Tom Rask‘s and Barb Haselden’s of the world — no matter how hard you try to be
thoughtful, be considerate, be creative in terms of trying to provide good
public transportation — they will not see anything good in what you do,” she
said."
Apparently, she did pay a lot of
attention to the 62% defeat of Greenlight since her
primary goal is to take transit financing out of the hands of the public and
put taxation power in the hands of her new state authorized “Regional Transit
Authority.”
Long has a history of attacking the
messenger and not getting the message. Fortunately, Rask and Haselden are not
intimidated by Long’s often harsh comments and hawkish looks. They speak for many
people who would not want to experience Long’s wrath.
It was unfortunate that thanks to some
clever Republican Politics Long managed to get reelected. It would be nice if
the Commissioner focused her efforts on issues that affect her constituency.
A lot of the work on this regional
transit authority will go on just out of public view as Jack Latvala, Janet
long and others work to pull the regional authority together with help from the
State Legislature with little public input or scrutiny.
That’s where Tom Rask, Barb Haselden, Sharon Calvert and others come in.
Without ongoing watchfulness, this
regional taxing authority will be dipping its hand into your wallet to provide
“transportation options” that you do not want or need, and that will not meet
the real public transportation need.
For now, the first step to any regional
transit authority must be the complete and total dissolution of TBARTA and a firm understanding that none of the TBARTA
people will play any role in a new transit authority. Otherwise, the citizens
will get a new tax, years of even more expensive studies and little to show for
their money.
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