Friday, Nov. 1, 2002 | 5:16 a.m.
WEEKEND EDITION: Nov. 3, 2002
Of all the high-profile ballot questions, the effort to generate $2.7 billion for new roads, highways and mass transit may be the least contentious.
The measure, which would rely mostly on a quarter-cent sales tax increase to fund transportation improvements over the next 25 years, is an advisory question and, if it passes, would go to the Legislature next spring for approval.
Most of the money -- that already in the system through existing taxes and the new funding through the tax initiative -- is already budgeted for specific purposes. Over the next 25 years, the funding from the tax initiative would pay for:
Local polls indicate Question 10 will pass easily, but Clark County Commissioner Bruce Woodbury, chairman of the Southern Nevada Regional Transportation Commission, said the political action committee formed to support the measure will continue with media buys until the election.
Woodbury said proponents of the tax initiative cannot relax because any tax increase will provoke opposition.
"The reason that it is going well is that people see the problem whenever they go out," he said. "But there is going to be a bill to pay, although it is fairly small -- about $1.25 a person a month."
Citizens for Improved Transportation, the pro-Question 10 committee made up of civic and business leaders, reports it has raised almost $430,000 in in-kind and financial contributions in the last three months. Question 10, closely modeled after a similar, and successful, tax initiative a more than decade ago, has drawn widespread support from throughout the community.
While road contractors such as Las Vegas' Frehner Construction might be expected to pony up $1,000 for the effort, gaming companies MGM Mirage and Mandalay Resort Group have kicked in far more -- $15,000 each.
Land developers and home builders, advertising companies, even the venerable Las Vegas restaurant Battista's Hole in the Wall, which chipped in $2,000, also support the tax initiative.
The many organizations that have endorsed the effort include the local arm of the Sierra Club, which supports the emphasis on mass transit and clean air programs, and the Nevada Taxpayers Association, which supports the initiative's schedule to end the tax increases in 2025.
Tom Skancke, a Las Vegas public relations consultant specializing in transportation issues, said Question 10 draws widespread support because it is critically important to keep the area moving.
"It's the single most important infrastructure need for Southern Nevada for the 21st century," he said.
"Our community is facing gridlock congestion on over 2,300 miles of our roadways by 2025," up from 341 miles of rush-hour gridlock today, RTC General Manager Jacob Snow repeats whenever he can.
Even without the additional funding the tax initiative would provide, the RTC has $6.5 billion worth of transportation projects planned over the next 20 years. But that funding at current levels will not be enough to stave off a traffic-congestion disaster, the agency staffers argue. The $2.7 billion extra would help prevent catastrophe, they say.
"Our economic well-being can't withstand the pressure of that kind of gridlock," Las Vegas Mayor Oscar Goodman said earlier this year. "Our businesses will be in a stranglehold."
The funding would not provide the whole solution, but it would go a long way toward containing the problem, the advocates argue.
Without the money, say RTC staffers and citizen coalition members, the valley faces Los Angeles-style gridlock throughout much of every day, increasing levels of smog from car exhaust, and a ripple effect that damages the entire local economy.
Snow, Woodbury and others argue that the funding also will be critical to bringing in as much as $3 billion in federal money. Most federal funding requires local seed money, which the tax initiative would provide.
There is no organized group formed to fight the question. The Nevada Policy Research Institute, a Libertarian think tank, has come out against it. Representatives from the group did not return phone calls last week.
Other opponents of the measure represent various perspectives -- but two of the central points made by many is that the Regional Transportation Commission could spend the money it has more wisely and that increasing the sales tax is not the best way to generate funds for transportation.
Kenneth Williams, a retired Los Angeles city attorney and one of three to write the arguments against the measure for the sample ballot, cites both points. He said opposing Question 10 has been a David-and-Goliath fight.
"If they just pulled in their belt a little and spent money a little more judiciously, they would be able to do a lot of their wish list," he said. "The reason the polls are showing what they do is that there has been no organized opposition on this question and there has been a lot of money promoting the question."
The RTC has spent nearly $400,000 getting the point out that transportation is in trouble in Clark County. While the ads from the government agency do not specifically call for voters to support Question 10, Williams and others argue that the media buy is clearly designed to influence the election.
"The promoting of this started well over a year ago when they (the RTC) appointed their citizens coalition," the group that identified growing deficiencies in local transportation, Williams said.
Williams said the funding mechanisms identified by the Regional Transportation Commission Community Coalition were rejected. The original proposal relied on $750 million from an increase in local gas taxes, but RTC staff found wide opposition to a gas-tax increase.
"They put a very different tax proposition on the ballot that doubled the sales tax and devoted half the sales tax increase to simply operations and maintenance of the RTC, not to specific improvements that might aid our congestion problems," he said.
The community coalition has since endorsed the modified funding mechanisms, although that move in October came too late to change the ballot arguments. The opponents' arguments call the community coalition recommendation "a lie," a statement that raised the ire of Woodbury and others, who said the coalition gave the RTC authority to modify the funding program.
Williams said he expects the measure to pass, but noted that many opponents will take their arguments to the Legislature next spring.
"The Legislature will get a lot of criticism in just adopting what Question 10 proposes," he said.
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