Major road projects in Pasco County have funding once again after outgoing commissioner Henry Wilson Jr., negotiated a hard no vote against a 5-cent gas tax increase to a yes.
Pasco County commissioners needed four out of five to approve the additional tax, which would raise $8 million annually for road projects that would’ve otherwise been delayed. Wilson, who voted against the tax last year with Commissioner Jack Mariano, decided to make the change after a personal appeal by Commissioner Ted Schrader, and an agreement to end the tax if state lawmakers present a new revenue source.
“We’re all in a lose-lose situation, primarily me,” Wilson said during Tuesday’s afternoon meeting in Dade City. “If I say yes to the gas tax after I said no every single time before, I will be labeled as a flip-flopper. If I say no to it today, I’m ostracized by the people who are trying to build here.”
Wilson, however, says he makes decisions based on the future of his two children. Schrader says he does the same thing, but feels that passing the tax on to property owners through a millage increase would put too much burden on residents, and not share the cost of building new roads by all the people who use them.
“Unfortunately, my children could not find adequate employment in Pasco County, and they are working in other places,” Schrader said. “I would suspect that you would elect for your children to have those opportunities to have good high-paying jobs in this immediate market area, and that is one thing that maybe you would contemplate.”
Wilson offered a compromise based on his work in Tallahassee to release some of the state-collected real-estate transfer fee. During the election, Wilson had pushed for that money to be made available to counties like Pasco so that it could be applied to roads.
By many estimates, Pasco County could receive $18 million each year from those fees if it were released by the Legislature, which would then be split with the school board. Still, the $9 million would be more than the $8 million a 5-cent gas tax would raise.
David Goldstein, one of the attorneys representing Pasco, said that he could add language to the gas tax ordinance that would allow such a tax to end if those funds became available to the county, and was approved by both state lawmakers and county commissioners. Wilson said the proposal stalled in Tallahassee during the last session because the majority of commissioners didn’t express support for the effort.
With the change, Wilson joined Schrader, Pat Mulieri and Kathryn Starkey to support the 5-cent gas tax. That means the commissioners will no longer explore raising property taxes to fund roads this year.
Mariano continued his opposition to the tax, saying there were other options the county could consider, and that this would have too much of a negative impact on business.
For more details on the discussion and the decision, pick up the Sept. 17 edition of The Laker/Lutz News.
