Northeast Cobb Commissioner JoAnn Birrell pets a dog during a presentation by Cobb County Animal Control at Birrell’s town hall meeting that took place at Mountain View Library on Wednesday.
Staff/Jon-Michael Sullivan
Staff/Jon-Michael Sullivan
“I don’t like the way it was created from the state. I don’t like the fact that there’s no opt-out. I’ve said that all along,” Birrell said of the Transportation Investment Act, which voters in a 10-county metro Atlanta area will consider on July 31. “And I don’t want another tax. Who does?”
The statement came after a 1½-hour town hall meeting, where most of the half-hour question and answer section was dedicated to complaints about the $6.1 billion TIA project list, which will be funded with a 10-year, 1 percent sales tax if voters approve it. Much of the anger was directed toward a $689 million earmark for enhanced premium bus service from Acworth to Midtown, which some fear could turn into a light-rail line that ends at Cumberland Mall, only a mile into Cobb.
“I don’t know why we are building a bus system from Acworth to downtown,” said Roger Willby with the Wendwood Civic Association. “We don’t want to work downtown, we want to work here.”
Willby also questioned why the county would have to contribute toward the $180 million earmarked in the TIA to fund the GRTA Xpress bus system, which connects passengers around the region with Atlanta.
Cobb Department of Transportation Director Faye DiMassimo said the money is needed because the GRTA system currently relies on federal money that will soon expire.
“If the TIA funding doesn’t pass, the GRTA Xpress bus service will be eliminated,” she said.
Marlene Mitchell of northeast Cobb, another of the 120 people in attendance, wondered if once the 10-year TIA funding is gone, the premium bus service from Acworth to Atlanta would also be eliminated.
Cobb Chairman Tim Lee, who was in attendance, said that if no new funding source is identified, the county could handle shutting the bus service down because the buses would be near the end of their useful lives.
Lee said Cobb was getting a good deal on the TIA compared to other counties in the region. He said Cobb residents would get back 98 percent of what they contribute back in new road and transit projects, while Rockdale County would get around 40 percent of what it pays back.
“We have a lot of projects we would have liked to have put on the list, but they wouldn’t have gotten through because they don’t have a regional emphasis,” he said. “There is no perfect solution. There never will be.”
After the meeting, Mitchell said the county will likely have to continue subsidizing the bus or rail system once TIA funding expires.
“I think what they’re not saying is that in order for it to be funded again, it’s going to be funded in another SPLOST,” she said. “I just don’t think the ridership is very high.”
Wheeler High School senior Kilshore Karnik, 18, one of a group of students attending the meeting, said voters should give the TIA a chance.
“If it doesn’t raise enough revenue, the government will step in and hopefully fix the issue,” he said.
Birrell said some projects in her district, such as a new Home Depot call center and Kaiser Permanente medical facility, both in the Town Center Community Improvement District, were coming along. But if you were getting ready to camp out for the opening of the new Chick-fil-A planned for the intersection of Sandy Plains and Shallowford roads, you might not want to get your sleeping bag out just yet.
“The way I understand it, they’ve run into a little snafu with the Kroger in the shopping center’s lease,” Birrell said. “For some reason, the Kroger lease is tied to the Chick-fil-A. So that may not happen at that shopping center.”
Birrell said Chick-fil-A would likely try to find another location in the area if it can’t secure its lease at the Sandy Plains Centre development.
Lee will have a town hall aimed at south Cobb residents at 7 p.m. Monday at the Lions Club Drive Community Center, 620 Lions Club Drive in Mableton.
Political candidates in attendance included Mike Boyce, one of Lee’s opponents in the July 31 Republican primary for county chairman; JoEllen Smith, who is running against state Rep. Don Parsons; superior court clerk candidate John Skelton and superior court judge candidate Van Pearlberg.
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This TIA turkey is goin' down to the ground.
Not only do we get to vote down the TIA scam, at the same time we get to vote for a new Cobb chairman on July 31, 2012 and in early voting.
It will be so nice to wave Tim Lee sianora!
Both of you are making the point about the flaws in the TSPLOST/TIA to which the anti TSPLOST/TIA voters are objecting to.
The TIA project list is not targeted toward regional transportation solutions as it should be.
It was formulated to garner votes from uninformed voters like you two who are only concerned with what happens at their front door.
Your vision doesn't extend beyond your immediate community.
The TSPLOST/TIA project list was not, for the most part, formulated with a regional perspective in mind.
Which is ironic since the ARC, especially the ARC Chairman, are charged with regional planning.
The project that you alluded to, a park entrnace and trail project, should be taken care of with county resources.
It is not a project that remotely has a regional significance or impact.
Once again you make my point.
Why do you think the 15% local discretionary allocation was included in the TIA formula?
It was simply a payoff to the local communities to attempt to buy their support for the TIA/TSPLOST.
It is what amounts to almost a $1.3 billion dollar bribe.
I reiterate, the various cities and counties should be fiscally responsible enough to fund their own community transportation improvements with their own resources.
Even more disturbing is that this 15% payoff is there to smooth the way for the balance of the project list. That balance is going to be used as a gigantic slush fund for certain special interests in the Metro Area to enrich themselves at the expense of the taxpayers.
It does not represent a regional transportation solution.
Would you still vote for the TIA if your local pet projects weren't included?
Anybody would be willing to give away $1.3 Billion to gain access to $6.5 Billion!!
Wake up, you are being duped into voting for this boondoggle.
How can it be a payoff if the money is coming from the citizens themselves? That does not make any sense does it? Well, good you got that slush fund word in there, nice talking points but short on substance. Vague claims about nefarious purposes by shadowy groups may work on those who like their water shallow but I like mine deep. So, you will have to do more to convince me this is a bad deal as I have done the research.
I have been very clear, I am voting yes because I see regional solutions to regional problems being addressed with this project list AND it also has value right outside my doorstep. I don't mind making that investment, not one bit.
It is funding that the local politicians can use to pay for projects that does not require them to be fiscally responsible with their own local budgets. It's a bail out to buy their support.
Pretty simple really and in most cases it is working. Fiscally irresponsible politicians and government bureaucrats who can't or won't manage their own budgets are on board.
The only projects that have a regional impact are the ones that improve certain interstate interchanges and are designed to efficiently funnel traffic from one high volume interstate to another.
Virtually all of the other projects on the list are not projects of regional impact.
If you aren't able to look objectively at the project list and figure that out for yourself that's not my problem.
They recognize it for what it is.
It is a humongous tax scam that has little if any impact on regional transportation issues as it so proudly claims.
Lee, Dimassimo, Mathews and others of their ilk around Metro Atlanta are hoping that the uninformed voters will be brainwashed by the multi million dollar misinformation campaign being waged by the proponents of the TSPLOST.
I am afraid they are going to succeed.
There are just too many people out there that are going to buy into the false information being distributed without taking the time to educate themselves about the non-solution project list.
At least I am glad my commissioner (Birrell) seems undecided at this point.
I'll be interested in seeing what her position is when it gets closer to the referendum date.
A YES vote on July 31 will do more to reduce traffic congestion, generate job growth and make all of our lives much better. All of these statements are proven and based on fact - not like the statements many of the opponents are throwing out there.
The referendum is also supported by the vast majority of citizens, not just a few, as is being proven by a 3 to 1 YES vote on the MDJ online survey right now.
Shouldn't your moniker be: Brainwashed Vtr. for TIA
I hope you take the time and effort to inform yourself before the referendum instead of being a MAVEN lemming.
The "economic impact" numbers rely upon simple guesses.
What is being offered as "proof" and "evidence" simply doesn't exist.
NO, Tim Lee
these millions & probably billions SHOULD have been spent more wisely addressing traffic issues.
As far as I can tell, you guys just want to ensure a slush fund for more wasteful spending to carry you through to retirement!
How 'bout retiring early and let us, the citizens decide how to fix the problems!
I'm glad you attended and are learning how government functions. You have SO MUCH to learn!
You want the government to step in? Do you know who the government is? It is I and anyone else paying taxes...hopefully you in a few years. The government is not a parent and should not be looked at as an entity that steps in and fixes things.
But keep paying attention.
As for Commissioner Birrell, she may have stepped over the line with her quote to the paper. It appears that was said after the meeting was adjourned in private rather than to those gathered for the meeting.
Not exactly a profile in courage Mrs. Birrell.
I agree with your statement about opening your mind and filling it with relevant facts and information about this TSPLOST issue.
However
DO NOT take the biased, fabricated information being spread by MAVEN and other special interest proponents of the TSPLOST as the facts.
They aren't.
They are BS!! Misinformation, half truths and outright lies being packaged and characterized as fact!!!
As far as the high school senior is concerned it sounds like he is already subscribing to the "government will take care of me" mantra that our public schools have been indoctrinating our children with for the last several decades.
Not a good sign.
First of all if the materials were EDUCATIONAL they would address both sides of the issue. They are so one sided it is laughable to call them educational.
Let's see.
- 200,000 newly created jobs. A fabrication with no logical or believable methodology to back it up.
- $19 Billion in increased income due solely to approval of the TSPLOST referendum. Another invented number that has no basis in reality.
These purported "facts" are tantamount to the fictions and false claims that Obama used to lie his way into the presidency.
These wild, unsubstantiated predictions and projections are targeted at the ignorant, naive and gullible.
For the rest of the story, if you are really interested, go to TrafficTruth.net
In all seriousness, JoAnn Birrell is probably acting shrewdly in backing away from the TSPLOST. She knows that this sucker is going to go down like the Titanic especially in her East Cobb district. And I have a question for Tim Lee. If I worked as an investment adviser and you entrusted me with your retirement portfolio, how would you feel if I told you I got a negative 2% return on your money?
I suspect you would fire me.