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Let's spend our transit taxes on transit!
Transit Crisis Bulletin
Metro board members offer ballot proposals
Several Metro board members made individual proposals for ballot concepts for the November referendum on whether to continue diverting 25% of transit sales tax revenues to unincorporated Harris County and 15 area cities, thus ending transit expansion in the Metro service area. The diversion is known as the General Mobility Program.

The following are a compilation of notes taken during the board session and are in several places incomplete. Only one board member, Christof Spieler, immediately made his proposal available to Houston Tomorrow. Spieler notes that his proposal is public and may be shared.

[Bulletin: Metro has just posted the video of the discussion here. It is the first item in the Archived Videos section.]

The board members making individual proposals were Carrin Patman, Christof Spieler, Chairman Gilbert Garcia, Vice Chair Allen Watson, and Dwight Jefferson, all of whom were appointed to the board by Houston Mayor Annise Parker.

Members Bert Ballanfant, Gary Stobb, Lisa Castañeda, and Cindy Siegel made a joint proposal, read by Ballanfant, to continue the 25% diversion (with no cap, and no allocation rules, and no term). Stobb and Castañeda represent Harris County, and Ballanfant and Siegel represent the 14 multi-cities. All of those receive the tax funds.

Jefferson proposed an “up or down” vote. He said his decision was based on community input, although he really favors a compromise. He proposes this choice: (A) continue the diversion at 25%, or (B) discontinue the diversion and Metro would retain all of the 1% sales tax.
 
Patman said she favored an “up or down” vote as well, but her proposal seemed to relate to the language that was on the 2003 ballot that established the Metro Solutions plan, and continuing the payments to 12/30/16 and requiring another election by 9/30/16.
 
Chairman Garcia also proposed an A/B choice, but (A) was to cap the payments at 2014 levels or (B) continue to pay 25% of the jurisdictions’ sales tax collections to the jurisdictions, essentially the current system. His term was to 2030, when presumably there would be another referendum. He was specific that (B) would mean that each jurisdiction gets 25% of its sales tax; all except Houston get much more than that now.  (A) has no allocation stipulated)
 
Vice Chair Watson proposed a cap at 25% of 2014, plus a provision for Metro to have additional sales tax bonding capacity for non-rail projects, given that another governmental entity (city, management district, TIRZ) provides at least 15% of the construction cost. He also stipulated that each member jurisdiction must get at least 23% of its sales tax back.
 
Spieler’s proposal is complex, (and is available here) but essentially suggests another referendum in five years, during which time the County and the cities would continue to take money, but only at the 25% level, and Metro would get new bonding authority up to $640 million based on its share of the sales tax revenues. It would use the bond revenues to build out the four lines specified in the 2003 referendum, which would add the University line west of Main to the three lines now under construction.

A provision of his proposal would require the City of Houston to pay for the roadwork, utility, and right of way portion of the University line project (but not the transit facility itself) out of its General Mobility payments.

[Note: we will update this account as details become available]

Houston Tomorrow and transit coalition offer another proposal
Houston Tomorrow and a coalition of partners sent a proposal to the Metro board of directors this morning. The proposal said the following:

Dear Members of the Board of Directors of the Metropolitan Transit Authority of Harris County,

We believe you should offer the following choice to the voters in November:

"Shall all future revenues from the existing 1% transit sales tax be dedicated to transit projects, discontinuing the diversion of 25 percent of those funds to other projects beginning in September 2014?"

Note:
The 2012 Kinder Houston Area Survey included this question and we believe the answer is the key to your current decision:

“Should we continue to use 25 percent of the funds from METRO for street improvements and other non-transit projects, or should all METRO funds be dedicated to transit improvements?”

58% of Harris County residents who expressed an opinion said dedicate it to transit improvements.

Sincerely,
David Crossley – Houston Tomorrow
Marci Perry – Citizens’ Transportation Coalition
Michelle Barnes – Community Artists’ Collective
Amanda Timm, – LISC - Houston
Jay Blazek Crossley – Houston Access to Urban Sustainability Project
Maria Pesantez – Emerging Professionals of the USGBC Texas Gulf Coast Chapter
Monica Savino – The Washington on Westcott (WOW) Roundabout Initiative
Margaret Robinson – Houston/Gulf Coast Section of the American Society of Landscape Architects, Texas
Rusty Bienvenue – AIA Houston
Matthew Tejada – Air Alliance Houston
John Jacob – Texas Coastal Watershed Program, Texas A&M
Frank Blake – Sierra Club, Houston Regional Group
Peter Brown – Better Houston
Heidi Vaughan – HIVE Houston
Kay Warhol – RichmondRail.org
Kathryn Baumeister – Bike Houston
 
One week left to fight for transit in Houston region!
On August 3, the Board of the Metropolitan Transit Authority of Harris County (Metro) is expected to vote on a proposal for a referendum that should be on the ballot in November for voters in the Metro Service Area.  This referendum could decide whether Houston will become a great modern City with sustainable economy, community, and environment - or not. Try this proposal on them: let's spend our transit taxes on transit!

Call today
You can send a letter, send other people to this link, or you can call Mayor Parker and Judge Emmett TODAY & ask them to spend all of our transit taxes on transit.

Key figures:
Houston Mayor Annise Parker                 Harris County Judge Ed Emmett
(713) 837-0311                                         (713) 755-5000
Annise Parker
The key figure: Houston Mayor Annise Parker
All eyes are now focused on Houston Mayor Annise Parker, who is said to be leaning toward a "compromise," but the only one that's on the public table right now would end transit expansion in the near term. In the "General Mobility" scheme, the City essentially subsidizes unincorporated Harris County, which is struggling mightily to direct population growth away from the City, and the 14 multicities, which generally use the transit money to keep their property taxes lower than Houston's. Why is the City doing this?  

Light rail station areas produce major rises in property values and the City would be the prime beneficiary of the growing tax base that would result from transit expansion, as has already happened along the Main Street line.

As much as Mayor Parker worries that the transit money is a significant part of the Rebuild Houston effort to fix the streets and drainage, she also knows that the recent Kinder Houston Area Study found that 58% of respondents want the transit tax to be used strictly for transit. Let her know what you think!