RTC’s $2.7 billion tax package passes

Wednesday, Nov. 6, 2002 | 9:33 a.m.

A formidable alliance of nonprofit groups, government agencies and elected boards and local industry of all stripes guided a proposed $2.7 billion tax initiative to victory Tuesday.

Question 10, an advisory measure, now goes to the Legislature for possible ratification this spring. The measure would provide $2.7 billion in taxes for transportation projects, much of it available within a few years through bonds.

That's in addition to the $6.5 billion already budgeted for roads and mass transit system improvements in Clark County through the next two decades.

The measure, which had no formal organized opposition, passed by a 53 percent margin. Polls had put support for the measure higher, but Regional Transportation Commission General Manager Jacob Snow said he is pleased by the vote.

"When you see that all the other ballot questions that involved raising taxes failed, I think it's a significant mandate from the public," he said. "This is what they want. We've very pleased."

Bryan Gresh, an RTC public relations consultant, said he would have liked to have seen a bigger victory margin, but the win was the important thing.

"It's a 'W,' and you take what the voters say and execute it," he said.

The tax initiative relies on a quarter-cent increase in the county's sales taxes to fund $2 billion of the measure. Increased home and business development fees and a 1 cent-per-gallon tax on jet fuel provide most of the rest of the funding.

Supporters said the additional funding is critical to avoid nearly total transportation system gridlock within a decade. Existing funding sources simply would not do the job, and failure to obtain the tax dollars would jeopardize not just the roads, but the local economy, they said.

"For the commuters and everybody in Clark County, this shows the importance of transportation to our quality of life," Snow said. "If we gridlock Southern Nevada, then we gridlock the economy of the entire state."

Citizens for Improved Transportation, the political action committee created to support the measure, promoted the tax initiative with radio, television and newspaper ads throughout the late summer and fall. Without organized opposition, the campaign's $430,000 in advertising went almost unanswered outside the op-ed pages of local newspapers.

A few dissenting voices wrote the argument against the issue for the sample ballot distributed in October. They said the reliance on a sales tax increase was unfair because it placed too much of the burden on those least able to pay, and the goals of the measure needed to be refined.

But even the measure's opponents agree that traffic congestion is a growing problem in the Las Vegas Valley. And officials with the Regional Transportation Commission say even the extra billions will only help control, not eliminate, traffic jams.

Snow pointed out that a recent national study from the Texas Transportation Institute, a nonpartisan research center, found Las Vegas had the highest amount of traffic-congested arterial streets among major cities in the country: 80 percent.

The measure, if approved next spring, would allow the RTC and Clark County Public Works to accelerate deployment of big-ticket transportation programs to curb traffic congestion, among them:

Supporters also say the extra funding is needed to bring in up to $3 billion in federal funding that generally requires a local match. Transportation officials plan to sell bonds on the expected revenue so the area's agencies do not have to wait decades for the tax dollars to be generated.

If the Legislature passes the package, about $200 million will be available for local road and transit within the first five years of the 25-year funding plan.

But Joseph Hogan, a retired U.S. Labor Department official and one of three men who wrote the argument against the initiative on the sample ballot, said the RTC should not count the money just yet.

"It was very close," he said. "I think in view of the tremendous amount of money put into the campaign and the fact that there was no opposition, it certainly tells the Legislature that this was not very popular.

"We'll urge the Legislature to reject this kind of blockbuster tax and ask the RTC to come up with a more reasonable proposition that's based on a fair distribution of the tax burden."

Snow, however, is not waiting for anyone to argue against the package. He said RTC staff and lobbyists already have plotted a strategy for legislative approval.

"We want to work closely with each legislative caucus. We want an endorsement from each caucus," he said, "and we want to work with the governor.

"We're going to trot out our list of endorsements," Snow said. "We want to firm up even more support."