Six picked to write ballot arguments on transit initiative

Wednesday, July 17, 2002 | 9:18 a.m.

The Clark County Commission approved six people Tuesday to write arguments for and against a proposed $2.7 billion tax initiative to benefit county roads and mass transit.

Three people will write the argument against the initiative and three will write the argument supporting the tax package. Officials and board members with the Regional Transportation Commission are backing the initiative, which would generate $2 billion from increased sales taxes over the next two decades.

The sales tax would go up a quarter-cent in Clark County to a total of 7.5 percent. RTC officials say the increased revenue is critically important to serving the growing county population and avoiding total gridlock on the roads and highways in the urban area.

Those selected to write the arguments for the question, which will appear on the November ballot, are:

Those selected to write the argument against the tax initiative are:

Of the six, only Hogan said he opposes the tax package. Olive and Vilardo said they are willing to write the opposing argument but do not necessarily oppose the question.

Hogan cited several reasons Tuesday for his opposition, including the environmental impacts of more road spending. Hogan also said the tax system needs to be redrawn so that RTC projects are funded through state tax dollars.

The sales tax, he said, imposes too much of a burden on average citizens.

Hogan said the projects the RTC wants are low priorities or they already would have been funded.

But Hogan also said he opposes the tax package because few big construction projects -- such as the kind of project that the question would pay for -- go to minorities or women.

"I characterize this as the discrimination tax," he said.

Clark County counsel Mary-Anne Miller warned the commissioners that raising issues of minority contracts might not be appropriate on the ballot.

Larry Lomax, Clark County registrar of voters, said he has the right to strip arguments of libelous, defamatory or factually inaccurate language, but emphasized that he would prefer not to do so.

But he is not sure if state law allows him to eliminate language that is irrelevant to the central ballot question. Lomax said he hopes he does not have to find out.

"I'm going to have to let it play out," he said. "Hopefully we won't have to deal with it."