Polk Commission rejects a referendum to raise the sales tax by a half cent for road funds
Polk County commissioners were outnumbered at Tuesday’s meeting by officials from cities within the county.
A parade of mayors, city commissioners and city managers strode to a lectern and implored the county commissioners to place a referendum on next year’s ballot for a half-cent sales tax to generate funding for transportation projects.
“This is not a time for us to walk away and make a decision based on the way we would normally do business,” Lakeland Mayor Bill Mutz told the county commissioners. “This is an extremely important time for us to allow citizens to tell us what they'd like to do.”
After hearing from 16 officials, though, the County Commission voted 4-1 against putting the measure before voters. Only Commissioner George Lindsey, who conceived the proposal and has promoted it for about a year, voted for putting the referendum on the ballot for the 2024 general election.
The four commissioners voting against the proposal — Bill Braswell, Neil Combee, Martha Santiago and Rick Wilson — cited inflation and other financial pressures and an unwillingness to allow a potential tax increase on Polk County residents.https://www.theledger.com/story/news/local/2023/11/20/early-downton-west-plan-aims-to-reconnect-nurture-neighborhoods/71621958007/
Lindsey, a third-term commissioner barred from seeking re-election next year, has made the quest for a transportation tax a chief priority over the past year. The proposed half-cent increase would have boosted the sales tax in Polk County to 7.5%.
Such a tax would generate a projected $2.1 billion over the 20 years before it ended, Lindsey said. The revenue would be shared with cities and towns based on the same formula used to distribute money from gasoline taxes.
That would have amounted to $220 million for Lakeland, $92 million for Winter Haven and $47 million for Haines City.
Lindsey, an executive with a construction company, argued that the funding boost is the best way to address the need for road improvements throughout rapidly developing Polk County.
In introducing his motion, Lindsey described how population growth has transformed Polk County in recent decades. Citing a report that the county’s population is on the verge of 835,000, he said that Polk’s growth rate exceeds those of any surrounding counties.
“Whether we like it or not, Polk County has become a major economic engine in Central Florida, sandwiched between two behemoth, metropolitan areas,” Lindsey said. “Over the years, through good times and bad times, Polk County has managed to meet the needs of our citizens with quality services, with one caveat, in my opinion. We are falling further behind on transportation.”
'Let the people decide'
The commission then yielded to public comments, which were dominated by officials from Polk County’s cities and towns, as Bartow, Davenport, Lakeland and Lake Alfred had multiple representatives at the meeting. Most of the officials asserted that roads and traffic are the chief concerns of their citizens.
In urging the County Commission to put the referendum on the ballot, many of the officials uttered some variation on the phrase, “Let the people decide.” Several cited an informal survey conducted by the Winter Haven Sun that found 61% approval for the idea of a sales tax for transportation.
“What I like about the sales tax is that not only Polk County citizens are going to pay for it, but six months of the year, we have a lot of folks who come to Polk County, spend money,” Polk City Mayor Joe LaCascia said. “When they spend money, they contribute to our sales tax. So most of this — not most, but some of this — is going to be paid by strangers that we don't even know.”
County Commissioner Neil Combee replied to LaCascia, reminding him that the county earned the informal name Imperial Polk County in the 1920s for building more roads than any other county in Florida. The county used bonding, rather than taxes, to pay for the roads, he said.
When LaCascia began to respond, newly elected Commission Chair Bill Braswell said, “We're not going to debate this. You've had your time. We're going to move on. We've got a whole bunch of you guys.”
Northeast Polk County has experienced the highest volume of population growth, and commissioners heard from Haines City Commissioner Roy Tyler and Davenport City Commissioner Tom Fellows. Tyler said that county commissioners need not support a tax increase but should allow voters to decide the issue.
“If we are a government of the people, then allow the people to speak,” Tyler said. “If you refuse to place this matter on the ballot, then you are in effect speaking for me. I do not think it is appropriate not to allow every resident to have a participatory impact on their welfare. If we keep doing what we've been doing, we will shortchange our future and jeopardize our potential.”
Bartow City Commissioner Trish Pfeiffer, vice chair of the Polk County Transportation Planning Organization, noted Combee’s mention of road-building in the 1920s and said the county faces a much different situation and population now.
“And 835,000 people is not the end game,” Pfeiffer said. “It’s going to go beyond that. So as leaders and policy makers, we have the opportunity now to address what is coming in the future. And I definitely see this half-cent sales tax as being a mechanism to help us in our TPO efforts to continue to plan our transportation network. And we're not even near the build-out yet.”
Longtime Bartow City Commissioner Leo Longworth said that traffic congestion and speeding are significant problems throughout the county.
“Deciding for this not to happen could be perceived as taking away the voices of the people on an issue where the process allows you to provide them with a voice,” Longworth said. “The big question is, ‘What do you have to lose?’ That it passes? Well, if it does, it’s obviously what the people want. If it doesn't pass, it's obviously what the people want, which I think is most important.”
Lake Alfred Mayor Nancy Z. Daley reiterated the call for letting citizens decide the issue.
“I don't want to see the Polk County Board of Commissioners get the reputation for being a dictatorship by not letting the people decide,” Daley said. “People have their opinions about this, one way or the other, and it will either pass or fail on its own merits. But if we don't let the people decide, they're going to think that we just want to tell them what to do.”
Lake Alfred City Manager Ryan Leavengood evoked the Polk Regional Water Cooperative as an example of a countywide initiative addressing a challenge created by a surge in population. He said the County Commission had the chance to demonstrate leadership by approving the ballot measure.
Reconnect and nurture neighborhoods: Lakeland looks at first draft of Downtown West plan
“In my mind, the tax has already been voted on,” he said. “It’s already been paid. Every permit that has been issued, every house, every rooftop that has been built, that tax is being put on the citizens of Polk County. And the question is, how do we pay for it? Do we pay for it from your time behind the wheel? Do we pay for it through fatalities and reduced safety? Do we pay for it through bonds? Or do we pay for it from carving out some of this windfall that we've received from ad valorem taxes?”
Officials from Dundee, Lake Hamilton, Lake Wales and Winter Haven also spoke in favor of the referendum, as did Brandon Clark, president of the Ruthvens, a commercial warehouse company, and Judi New, a candidate for the County Commission.
Citizens can't afford it?
During discussion of Lindsey’s motion to place the referendum on the ballot, commissioners displayed irritation at some of the officials’ comments.
“I've been here seven years, and it takes a roomful of politicians to be called a dictator and a Sunshine Law violator for the first time in seven years,” Braswell said.
“I've heard words from people, from you — we live in an ivory tower,” Santiago said. “I just heard 'dictatorship.' Those words really bother me. I would never, ever use those kind of words to reflect any of my city commissioners or city mayors or managers.”
Combee acknowledged that he would favor the sales tax if he were a commission of a city and not the county. He suggested that the officials seemed excited about the county’s rapid population growth, a trend he said most residents do not celebrate.
“So I get kind of surprised when I hear people acting like it's a wonderful thing, that, man, we're growing like crazy,” Combee said. “And, oh, we need some more taxes. If we get some more taxes, we can build some more roads. And if you want more growth, you’ve got to have more taxes. Well, I can tell you that people this county, most of them, especially probably the bottom two-thirds, they can't afford to pay any more.”
Santiago suggested that the County Commission should have left the property tax rate unchanged, rather than reducing it by 3%, to generate money for roads.
Wilson said he has heard from residents unhappy after hearing that the County Commission wants to raise taxes.
“And I have to say, ‘Well, no, that's not really the truth of the deal,’” Wilson said. “George Lindsay has got something going and wants to raise the taxes. But a lot of people think that we, being that it gets put on the ballot, then we're all in for raising taxes. Well, you know, I'm definitely not about wanting to raise taxes.”
Braswell said that even if the commission voted down the proposal, citizens could place the measure on the ballot through a petition drive. The county did not have details Thursday on the requirements for doing that.
Commissioners dismissed suggestions that they should give citizens the option of deciding the matter.
“I sincerely believe that when I elect a person for a position, I'm also electing that person because I have trust and confidence that they will make the right decision,” Santiago said.
Lindsey said he had heard concerns that if the referendum appeared on the ballot, “those people might pass it.” He praised Polk County voters for rejecting a one-cent sales tax for transportation funding in 2014, a measure he deemed “poorly planned,” and for approving a property tax increase last year to generate money for acquiring conservation lands.
Combee suggested that if citizens are given the option of adopting a sales-tax increase, there should also be a referendum on reducing property tax rates by 15%. After the vote on Lindsey’s proposal, Combee made a motion to place such a referendum on the ballot but received no second for it.
Gary White can be reached at gary.white@theledger.com or 863-802-7518. Follow on X @garywhite13.
This article originally appeared on The Ledger: Polk Commission rejects referendum to boost sales tax for road funds
