{"id":2317,"date":"2023-10-12T12:49:58","date_gmt":"2023-10-12T16:49:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ancientislands.org\/?p=2317"},"modified":"2023-10-12T12:49:58","modified_gmt":"2023-10-12T16:49:58","slug":"proposed-sales-tax-vote-to-fund-roads-splits-polk-tpo","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ancientislands.org\/?p=2317","title":{"rendered":"Proposed Sales Tax Vote To Fund Roads Splits Polk TPO"},"content":{"rendered":"

Traffic Tr
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

Traffic congestion is common in many parts of Polk County as this once rural county heads toward having a population of more than 1 million residents in the near future.\n<\/p>\n

County Commissioner George Lindsey, a local developer, once again made his case for the latest of several sales tax referendums that have been proposed and defeated since 1992, at Thursday’s meeting of the Polk Transportation Planning Organization. The TPO is a panel composed of elected officials from all over Polk County.\n<\/p>\n

He wants to have the measure put on the ballot in 2024. That will require approval by his colleagues, which so far has not been forthcoming.\n<\/p>\n

He argued it is necessary because the number of substandard roads is growing and there is no money from existing revenue to deal with the looming deficit.\n<\/p>\n

However past referendums have failed because of a mixture of general opposition to tax increases and concerns that the money would finance developer wish lists to open more land to development rather than solving existing traffic problems.\n<\/p>\n

That is, many of the projects on Polk County’s current list of unfunded transportation “needs” look more like wants.\n<\/p>\n

County Commissioner Neil Combee pushed back against Lindsey’s idea, repeating the Republican Party line that inflation is hurting families and an additional sales tax will hurt them even more. He accused tax proponents of living in “ivory towers and echo chambers.”\n<\/p>\n

He cited the $40 million expense of widening a one-mile stretch of Old Lake Wilson Road in the Loughman area as an example, arguing this is a road the majority of Polk County residents will never drive on.\n<\/p>\n

What was left out of his argument was the fact that much of development in northeast Polk and other parts of Polk County were mapped and approved without much thought on how to pay for the inevitable effects on the road network and other public services.\n<\/p>\n

Impact fees to pay for the improvements were slow to be adopted and underfunded to keep the development community happy.\n<\/p>\n

Increased development densities along two-lane roads were approved under the guise of supporting transit.\n<\/p>\n

Many of those decisions occurred during Combee’s previous tenure on the commission.\n<\/p>\n

And Combee’s position drew pushback from city commissioners on the TPO board, who argued against denying the public a chance to decide on this issue.\n<\/p>\n

Lakeland Commissioner Sara Roberts McCarley said traffic is the main issue her constituents raise.\n<\/p>\n

“We can’t keep doing what we’ve been doing for the past 50 years,” she said, arguing that it is the opponents of putting the issue on the ballot who live in an ivory tower.\n<\/p>\n

That division was reflected in a motion proposed by Haines City Mayor Roy Tyler to send a letter to the Polk County Commission urging them to put the measure on the ballot.\n<\/p>\n

The measure passed, with four of the five county commissioners voting against it.\n<\/p>\n

Stay tuned.\n<\/p>\n

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\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Traffic Tr Traffic congestion is common in many parts of Polk County as this once rural county heads toward having a population of more than 1 million residents in the near future. County Commissioner George Lindsey, a local developer, once again made his case for the latest of several sales tax referendums that have been […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2317","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-gci"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ancientislands.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2317","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ancientislands.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ancientislands.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ancientislands.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ancientislands.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2317"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.ancientislands.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2317\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2318,"href":"https:\/\/www.ancientislands.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2317\/revisions\/2318"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ancientislands.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2317"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ancientislands.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2317"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ancientislands.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2317"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}