There have been two major transit tax referenda in the Tampa Bay area in the past four years, and both times the measures have been resoundingly defeated by the voters. The polls have only been closed for a little over an hour as I write this, but there is no way that Greenlight Pinellas is going to win tonight. With 13 of 299 precincts reporting, the measure is getting absolutely crushed, 62-38 percent. That's even worse than the margin when Hillsborough County voters rejected a transit tax in 2010. That went down by a 58-42 percent margin.
The soundness of the defeat has to have some of our leaders in the political and business community think: What the f*ck do we have to do to pass such a measure in this community?
Greenlight had a dominant advantage of over 10-to-1 in fundraising; it had buy-in from the Pinellas establishment (i.e., the Times editorial board and the Chamber of Commerce); it had respected Republicans like Jack Latvala endorse it — and it still got its ass kicked.
"We'll dust ourselves off and we'll keep working," City Councilwoman and PSTA board member Darden Rice said tonight. Which is the only thing to say in the wake of the devastating loss.
Ray Chiaramonte, the chair of the Hillsborough County Metropolitan Organization, said last week that a major concern was if Greenlight lost, would the percentages be better than in Hillsborough? "If they are, well, then OK. We're going in the right direction."
But at this point the result is worse.
"If this trend holds, it's going to be very difficult to move forward in a progressive way for the Tampa Bay area on transportation," said Congresswoman Kathy Castor Tuesday night. "But you can't give up. It's still a fantastic place to live, we still have so much going for us. But I hate that we're behind other metropolitan areas and it may set us back a little bit."
The measure called for a 1-cent sales tax to help pay for expanded bus service and would have created a light-rail network connecting St. Petersburg to Clearwater. It would also have dropped the property tax allocation that home owners gave to PSTA, the Pinellas County transit agency.
This a huge victory for Barb Haselden and the No Tax for Tracks contingent, who were mocked by their opponents but are celebrating big-time this evening.