Media Update

By Christopher Curry
Staff writer

How do Alachua County and Gainesville spend their gas tax monies and transportation budgets?

With the county facing a $380 million road resurfacing backlog, how much has the additional nickel gas tax that county commissioners approved in 2007 raised to date, and where is that money going?

With debate ongoing over a potential roads-only sales tax initiative, those questions are key parts of the conversation.

Currently, Alachua County is among 20 counties, including neighboring Marion and Putnam, that impose the maximum allowable local gas tax of 12 cents a gallon.

While other monies also go toward the city and county's transportation programs, gas tax revenues are the primary source.

From fiscal year 2003-2004 through March of this year, Gainesville's share of the gas tax revenues totaled approximately $31.5 million, a city report showed.

From 1999 through 2010, the local-option gas tax raised approximately $114 million for Alachua County.

The majority of the city's gas-tax money goes toward the Gainesville Regional Transit System, and gas tax revenues still make up only a fraction of the annual RTS budget, with the University of Florida and its students funding the majority.

The bulk of the county's monies go toward day-to-day operations and road maintenance, said Kenneth Fair, the administrative support manager for the Public Works Department.

"Most of our money goes toward taking care of 911 miles of roads on a daily basis," Fair said.

Here's further detail on the county and city's transportation funding.

City of Gainesville

A city of Gainesville Budget and Finance Department report showed that, from 2004 through the first six months of this year, $18.8 million of the city's gas tax revenues was transferred to RTS. While that was almost 60 percent of total gas tax revenues, it would not cover the approximately $21.9 million 2011-12 RTS budget.

This year, approximately $2.4 million — or 11 percent — of the RTS budget is expected to come from gas tax revenue. The majority, almost $11.2 million, comes from the University of Florida through campus development funds and student fees.

Other significant sources of money for RTS include $2.65 million in Federal Transit Authority funding and $1.9 million from the Florida Department of Transportation. Fares and bus passes amount to a little more than $1 million.

Gainesville owns about 386 miles of roadway and faces a $30 million resurfacing backlog to get all roads to at least a score of 70 or "satisfactory" on the pavement condition index, Public Works Director Teresa Scott said.

With its share of the extra nickel gas tax and money from bonds, the city has allocated about $15.9 million to go toward 13 infrastructure projects. To date, approximately $3.4 million of that has been spent. One of the few completed projects on the list is the roundabout at Southwest Sixth Street and Southwest Second Avenue.

Major projects still to come include the next phase of Depot Avenue resurfacing, the resurfacing of Northwest Eighth Avenue, a streetscaping along North Main Street and the reconstruction of Southwest Sixth Street.

County revenues and expenditures

A county Public Works Department report covering 1999 through 2010 showed gas tax revenues of $114 million. Impact fees (about $9.1 million), inspection and permitting fees, reimbursements from the Florida Department of Transportation and about $12.8 million transferred from the general fund pushed total transportation revenues during that span to approximately $149.7 million.

Total expenditures were $138.4 million.

Of that, a combined $83.3 million, or 60 percent, went toward the Transportation Improvement and Road and Bridge Maintenance divisions.

It funded areas such routine road maintenance projects under $25,000. It went toward filling potholes, mowing right of way, tree trimming, road grading, stormwater maintenance, engineering, transportation planning, inspections and other day-to-day operations.

Gas tax monies also pay for the salaries and benefits of employees in those divisions.

A total of approximately $41 million went toward personnel costs from 1999 through 2010.

As for road resurfacing, those expenditures totaled approximately $33 million — a figure that does not include outstanding debt on bonds issued to fund projects.

From 1999 through 2010, the county's combined costs for Gainesville Regional Transit System operations in the unincorporated county, the Metropolitan Transportation Planning Organization and MV Transportation, the company that provides paratransit services through a county contract, combined for $9.35 million.

Expenditures for sidewalks and bicycle paths combined for $306,000.

County road resurfacing

With its $380 million road resurfacing backlog, what projects has the county taken on over the past several years? In 2005, the county approved a $33 million bond, which is being repaid by gas tax revenues, to fund road resurfacing projects.

From 2006 to the present, the county has completed or substantially completed 15 road resurfacing projects — not including neighborhood roads — covering about 57 miles. That includes the work on Northwest/Southwest 91st Street, which is in its last stages, and the resurfacing of North Main Street from Eighth Avenue to 23rd Avenue. Some completed projects include Northwest County Road 241, Southeast County Road 235, Southwest 122nd Street, Northwest 39th Avenue and Northeast County Road 225.

The list of projects does not include Northwest County Road 231, a seven-mile stretch that was once among the most beaten and battered roads in the county. A first phase of resurfacing has been completed there, but additional work is expected to begin in the fall.

In 2007, county commissioners approved the extra nickel gas tax with the expectation that 75 percent of the money from it would fund five resurfacing projects on a pay-as-you go basis: Northwest 16th/23rd Avenue, County Road 231, Southwest 63rd Boulevard/62nd Avenue, Northwest 43rd Street and County Road 235.

To date, that tax, which sunsets in 2018, has raised approximately $9.7 million. County commissioners abandoned the pay-as-you-go plan and issued a bond, which will be repaid via revenues from the extra nickel tax, to accelerate the timetable for the resurfacing of CR 231.

Now, it remains to be seen if revenues from the nickel will cover even four of the five projects on the original list. The projected costs for 16th/23rd Avenue, the design of which has been subject to extended public debate, are now more than $7 million, Cerlanek said.

The county owns 677 miles of paved roads and 240 miles of unpaved roads.

Of that paved mileage, about 27 percent — about 185 miles — was former state roads transferred to the county in 1980. That year, the state redesignated many roads and transferred their ownership — and the responsibility to maintain and repair them — to local governments, said Michael Fay, the development program manager with the county's Transportation & Development Division.

The state provided the county one cent of gas tax monies to care for those roads, said Fay, who started with the county as a road inspector in 1982. Today, it means $1 million of revenues for 185 miles of road, Fay said.

"It definitely was not enough to maintain all that infrastructure," he said.

By Ron Cunningham
Editorial page editor

Just a few things today.

1. In politics, as in comedy, timing is everything.

This week, the 1000 Friends of Florida announced it was giving Alachua County its coveted Better Community Award for the county's commitment to "multi-modal transportation and sustainable patterns of development."

Multi-modal being planner-speak for getting people here and there by bus, bike, car and shoe leather.

"Alachua County is taking important steps to provide a wider range of transportation options for its residents," said 1000 Friends President and CEO Charles Pattison.

This, following the county's adoption of land-use regulations that encourage development tied to bus rapid transit.

The timing of this announcement is either sublime or absurd depending on your point of view.

It arrives just as two commissioners, Lee Pinkoson and Susan Baird, are trying to torpedo a quarter-cent bus rapid transportation sales tax initiative because they think its mere presence on the ballot will irreparably contaminate any chance of passing a companion three-quarter cent initiative for road repairs.

Multi-modal, multi-schmodal. Alachua County's transportation needs can be summed up in just two words, Baird insists.

"Asphalt. Period."

2. Speaking of multi-modal, May is National Bike Month. If you've ever thought about cycle-commuting to work (I've been doing it for years), this is a good time to give it a try.

"Bicyclists in the U.S. save $4.6 billion per year by riding instead of driving," the League of American Bicyclists announced this week.

If you want to get an idea of how much money you can save by cycle-commuting, go to the financial advice website Kiplinger (www.kiplinger.com/tools/bike) and try its "Calculator" tool.

"Some families have saved over $2,500 in a year by using bikes as a primary source of transportation," Kiplinger states.

And save time as well.

"Half of the working population in the U.S. commutes five miles or less to work, with bike trips of three to five miles taking less time or the same amount of time as commuting by car."

3. Got fish?

Defenders of the Rodman Reservoir have long argued that breaching the Kirkpatrick Dam and restoring a free-flowing Ocklawaha River would destroy what amounts to a fisherman's paradise. But a three-year study by the Putnam County Environmental Council debunks that contention.

Roy R. Lewis III, the certified wetland scientists and senior ecologist who conducted the study, concluded "there is no credible scientific basis to predict any permanent decline in fish resources following restoration, nor a specific decline in sports fishing opportunities over the short or long term...in specific areas such as the Silver River, the reconnected springs and spring runs, a significant increase in fish populations can be expected."

Since construction of the dam half a century ago, the Ocklawaha has experienced a massive loss of fish species. It's hard to imagine that reconnecting that river with the St. Johns would do anything but increase, not decrease, fishing opportunities.

By Christopher Curry
Staff writer

Some Gainesville city commissioners feel the County Commission threw them under the bus with Tuesday's 3-2 vote to kill a proposed sales tax referendum for the city's Regional Transit System.

They also are vexed by the county's corresponding 3-2 decision to move ahead with a roads-only sales tax initiative also under consideration. Gainesville would receive only 24 percent of the money from that tax, even though it makes up just over half of the countywide population.

"I don't think I've ever seen a proposal put on the ballot with a more inequitable distribution of the revenues," Mayor Craig Lowe said.

City Commissioner Susan Bottcher said she was disappointed but "not surprised" by county commissioners' decision not to put the transit tax on the ballot.

"Basically the county said that we don't even want to let the public vote on it," she said.

As with the March 29 decision to split a one-cent transportation tax into two separate referendums, county commissioners Susan Baird, Winston Bradley and Lee Pinkoson were in the majority who voted to move ahead with the roads-only tax. Commissioners Mike Byerly and Paula DeLaney opposed the decision to kill the transit piece, as they opposed the decision to divide the tax referendums.

Baird said Wednesday that additional planning needs to be done — including the alternatives analysis of how bus rapid transit would operate on roadways — before any tax to fund bus rapid transit should go to voters.

She also said the city does not yet have the population and development density to support bus rapid transit.

"They have this vision for Gainesville when, at this point in time, we don't have the density for it. And it's going to cost a lot of money," she said. "I think number one it is premature and number two it is a luxury that we can't afford right now. And we have so many roads in the city and the county that need to be repaired right now."

Byerly said the county had approached municipalities with a one-cent tax and a pledge that, while all the county's share would go toward an estimated $380 million in road resurfacing needs, the cities would be allowed to choose their own projects.

He said subsequent decisions by the County Commission majority — which have included dividing the tax initiatives into two referendums, a prohibition to let any money go toward sidewalks and now the end of the transit tax — have undermined that pledge.

"It is not the way to build a coalition, and it is not the way to get a tax passed," Byerly said. "I won't support it and I'll be encouraging people to vote against it. I think it's a poorly thought out and too narrowly focused referendum."

On March 29, county commissioners voted 3-2 to subdivide the proposed one-cent sales tax for transportation projects into a three-quarter-cent tax initiative for roads and a one-quarter-cent tax for the city's transit system.

Under that plan, the city would receive approximately $5.5 million — or 24 percent — of $22.5 million that the roads tax would raise annually. Some $12.97 million would go to the county, and the smaller municipalities would split the rest.

The city also would have received all the projected $7.5 million raised annually by the transit tax.

Taking that transit money off the table for a municipality that has approximately half the county's voters will "basically seal the fate" of the tax, Acting County Manager Rick Drummond said before Tuesday's vote.

"You have now not only taken away the option of the city of Gainesville residents — and the rest of the county — to vote on enhanced transit services," Drummond said. "This motion, without modification, would reduce significantly the share of the sales tax that would go to the city of Gainesville."

Asked if city commissioners might openly oppose the measure or lobby the county for a larger piece of funding from the roads tax, Lowe, who was already an outspoken critic of the vote to spilt the two taxes, said, "we have to consider that as a group."

"I think there are a number of options the city could take," he said. "I don't think supporting the tax as it now is one of those options."

In response to the argument that the city was getting short-changed, Pinkoson said Tuesday that the county's list of road projects included county-owned roadways in the city of Gainesville.

Some 77 miles of county-owned and maintained roads in the city of Gainesville were on the county's road resurfacing project list, according to a Public Works report.

They included Northwest 43rd Street, a segment of Northeast/Northwest 16th Avenue and North Main Street.

On Tuesday, the city's planned bus rapid transit system was the focus of county commissioners' opposition to the transit tax.

City Commissioner Thomas Hawkins said that the county commissioners who nixed the transit tax referendum "misrepresented" the city's bus rapid transit plans. He noted that a feasibility study had already concluded that RTS had adequate ridership to support bus rapid transit.

The alternatives analysis, Hawkins said, was required for the system to be eligible for federal funding and would get into the details of how it would run on roadways.

Hawkins has formed a political action committee, Open Alachua, to advocate and conduct polling on the transportation tax issue. He said the plan, up until Tuesday, was that the committee would support both the road and transit taxes. Now, he was unsure what role the PAC would take.

Bottcher believed the county's discussion focused too much on bus rapid transit. The city projected that a combined $54 million of its revenues would go toward the construction and operation of a system that would link The Oaks Mall, Butler Plaza, the area near the University of Florida, the Waldo Road corridor and Gainesville Regional Airport.

Still, Bottcher said that, before that money was spent, the city would improve service on existing routes, invest in better bus stops, put funding toward a required new maintenance facility and buy buses.

By Chad Smith
Staff writer

With the drought-depleted Santa Fe River nearly stagnant in places, a bloom of algae has developed on the river near High Springs, and officials are cautioning swimmers about potential health risks — though they don't believe it is a toxic species of algae.

The green slime covering the river between the U.S. 27 bridge and Poe Springs had alarmed regulars and has been identified as Anabaena circinalis, which Anthony Dennis, the environmental health director at the Alachua County Health Department, said can give off toxins in other parts of the world like Australia but has tested non-toxic in Florida.

"In Florida, that algae is not known to produce toxins and adverse health effects," Dennis said.

Still, he said the department is recommending no one swim or fish in or drink water from around the bloom.

Chris Bird, the director of the county's Environmental Protection Department, said most wouldn't want to anyway.

"It stinks. It's not attractive," Bird said. "Generally it's not something people want to be around anyway just because it's a nuisance."

He said the algae was created in part because of the significantly decreased flow in the river, caused by the prolonged drought and less water being supplied to the river from the nearby springs.

The spring water that is flowing into the river contains nitrogen that, with the slow speed of the river and the warm temperatures, has combined to form the bloom.

"It's probably better to avoid it if you can," Bird said. "We don't have confirmation yet that it's a toxic algae. Obviously if that becomes confirmed, it's a whole different situation."

While officials tested water in the Santa Fe River this week, they also tested Poe Springs, where the water has nearly stopped flowing altogether.

The spring has been closed because of construction, but swimmers have been ignoring that.

Dennis said the water there didn't appear to be unhealthy, though, of course, swimmers aren't supposed to be there until construction wraps up.

With the Memorial Day weekend ahead, he said swimmers everywhere should be mindful because of the low water levels, cautioning them to be aware of visibility issues, to look out for rocks and to avoid any areas in which they see blooms and other abnormalities like dead fish.

"Hopefully everybody takes precautions," he said.

By Todd Chase
Special to The Sun

I have read and heard a great deal about the need for compromise in our local government recently. From one of our new city commissioner's inaugural speeches, a recent editorial, or to my plea to my colleagues at last week's meeting; it is clear to me that the only path to progress and prosperity in our community will come with mutual respect, honest discussion and willing compromise.

The challenge, however, is that I have seen very little of it in my one year on Gainesville's City Commission.
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Why compromise at all when you simply have the votes to pass anything you like? That is how our local governments have run for years now.

One of the first major items that came before me was a significant increase to our environmental regulations, which were pursued to simply match the county's. That is pretty much how things have worked around here: County and city hand in hand.

However, now the county has an interesting and evolving dynamic that is making all this talk of compromise so relevant. They are now a body of five individuals with varied backgrounds and views who are still figuring out how to move forward on issues where they now must balance each other's thoughts. They can either find a way to work together or simply become our own local version of the U.S. Congress where progress stops at the door of ideology.

At the city level, unfortunately, we seem to lack any willingness or desire to find compromise. With the new county dynamics, our city commission, for the first time in many years, faces the challenge of working with our counterparts across University Avenue who will not simply pass whatever it is we want to do and vice versa.

As a new observer to this business, it is fascinating to watch. It is also very discouraging.

On at least four occasions during my first year in office I have been asked to basically stop expressing my views during a meeting, or to hurry it up because, essentially, my thoughts don't matter. At our most recent meeting, I was asked to wrap things up as I shared my views on the list of transit projects we are asking our residents to fund to the tune of more than $100 million over the next 15 years because it was going to pass 6 to 1 regardless of what I was saying.

I am actually not opposed to many of the much needed improvements and increased efficiencies to our transit services or our multi-modal offerings included in the proposals. I just happen to have legitimate concerns over committing our residents today to a transformative bus rapid transit system that will ultimately cost hundreds of millions of dollars through a combination of local taxes, state, and federal funding as it is developed over the course of the current tax proposals and the future ones necessary to build it.

We have recently begun the process of completing a $600,000, 18 month alternatives analysis that will tell us the optimum design, route structure and cost to the system. I simply believe it is irresponsible to proceed prior to having that information.

Perhaps this comes from my experience as a venture capitalist and entrepreneur, where I am used to the level of due diligence required to put both personal and investor capital at risk.

We now find ourselves as two governing bodies facing an opportunity to improve our critical infrastructure of roads, transportation and transit. Early in the process we had a chance to work together to come up with a list of projects and priorities that could be agreed upon that would best serve all of the citizens of our city and the county. It would be a list that included elements of road maintenance and construction, multi-modal enhancements and transit improvements.

It would also have required compromise from your elected representatives in realizing that getting some of what you support and giving some of which you don't is the only way to achieve progress.

It is either that or we continue to divide and fight and show our citizens that there is simply no room for compromise when it comes to ideology.

Todd Chase is a Gainesville city commissioner.

By Chad Smith
Staff writer

After spending the past few weeks paving the way for two transportation sales taxes to go to voters in the fall — a ¾-cent tax to fund roads around Alachua County and a ¼-cent tax to fund transit projects in Gainesville — the Alachua County Commission reversed course on Tuesday and killed the transit question before it could get to the ballot.

After a number of back-and-forth exchanges, failed motions and questions over the city of Gainesville's proposed bus rapid transit system, a motion to nix the transit portion altogether passed, 3-2, with Commissioners Paula DeLaney and Mike Byerly in dissent.

The three commissioners who backed the motion — Susan Baird, Winston Bradley and Lee Pinkoson — said the city's plans to spend the estimated $121 million in revenue were too vague.

They also said bus rapid transit wasn't needed yet and hadn't even been completely vetted, referring to the analysis of alternatives that will take another year and a half to complete.

"There are myriad of issues that haven't been solved yet," Pinkoson said. "That's why when we started this process, we would do roads only."

Baird said it would be "irresponsible" to put the transit measure on the ballot because there wasn't enough information.

Byerly countered that much of the transit money would go to expand the Gainesville Regional Transit System's current services while bus rapid transit, or BRT, was developed.

Last year, when the County Commission started discussions about the surtax, it started as a 1-cent initiative to fund transportation projects. The county asked municipalities to submit lists of projects they would fund with their cuts of the revenue.

Gainesville came back with a series of transportation projects on top of road improvements, while the other cities and towns came back with only road projects.

Last month, the County Commission, in another divided vote, moved to separate out the two measures — transit and roads — and send two separate questions to voters.

Byerly and DeLaney, both Democrats, said without the transit incentives for Gainesville, the city's voters wouldn't support the road surtax, either.

County Manager Richard Drummond alluded to that as well, saying commissioners might consider adjusting how much Gainesville gets from the road tax to make it more palatable to the city's voters, who, as DeLaney noted, are much more willing to support new taxes than voters outside the city limits.

City Commissioner Thomas Hawkins responded to criticism that there wasn't enough data on BRT.

"It's justified by existing density. It's justified by existing ridership," Hawkins said, noting that the feasibility study on BRT concluded that it would work.

After the vote, Hawkins said he felt "like Alice in Wonderland."

"I think it's incredibly myopic," he said.

Bradley, who was appointed to the commission in February by Gov. Rick Scott after Rodney Long resigned from his post, became the swing vote on the issue, joining fellow Republican Baird and Pinkoson, a Democrat, against the transit initiative.

Bradley said he was concerned with what he saw as a lack of information about what the money would go toward.

"Apparently they have no plans at this time," Bradley said.

Hawkins called that a "double standard," replying that there were "reams of data" provided about BRT and other RTS projects while cities weren't required to provide any data alongside road projects.

By Chad Smith
Staff writer

The Alachua County Commission on Tuesday voted to drop the number of voting precincts from 69 to 63 to cut down on the number of ballots needed as well as confusion stemming from precincts being split along congressional, county and city lines.

A few precincts were largely unchanged, mainly in the southwest corner of the county. But new state laws and the redistricting process compelled the Alachua County Supervisor of Elections Office to make big changes in the Gainesville area, as well as the western part of the county.

"The lines are significantly changed," Will Boyett, the chief deputy of elections, told commissioners.

Elections Supervisor Pam Carpenter said her staff would be able to handle eliminating six precincts because, on average, 35 percent of voters routinely cast their ballots either early or absentee.

For 2008's presidential election, when turnout was more than 80 percent, roughly 61 percent of voters voted before Election Day, Carpenter pointed out.

The eliminated precincts were 4, 16, 29, 39, 41 and 58 in and around Gainesville, as well as 70 in Alachua and 71 in Archer.

Voters in those areas will be moved into nearby precincts.

Carpenter said all 153,000-plus county voters will receive new registration cards detailing their new precincts as well as congressional, legislative and county districts in the mail ahead of the primary election on Aug. 14.

She said her office would see some savings from the plan by cutting down on the staff and equipment needed to work elections.

"We're still going to be serving the same number of voters as before," she said in an interview. "Where we'll see the savings is in phone hookups, staffing levels and in the future, when we go to purchase replacement equipment, there will be fewer precincts that will require equipment."

A new state law requiring that all precincts contain whole census blocks — either one or more — meant at least minor changes to virtually all of the precincts, Boyett said.

As a result of redrawing the precinct lines, there is now only one precinct in two different congressional districts, as opposed to the six splits before.

Where there were 12 precincts divided into different state House districts, there are only four now.

Commissioner Lee Pinkoson asked Carpenter about the possibility of eliminating more precincts in the future as early voting becomes more prevalent.

While turnout could be high in the presidential election in November, Pinkoson noted that there is a much less "fervor" for mid-term elections.

"We give every opportunity in the world to vote, so hopefully more people take advantage of that," he said.