Several key RTD directors say this is not the year to ask metro Denver voters to back a doubling of the FasTracks sales tax.
While the full Regional Transportation District board has not yet decided on timing for the tax vote, agency director Noel Busck told the FasTracks task force of the Metro Mayors Caucus on Thursday: “I’ve made my decision; I’m not going in 2010.”
Busck said this November’s ballot will be congested with citizen-initiated measures, adding that the overload, coupled with the weak economy, suggests that a delay in seeking voter support for another FasTracks tax is prudent.
RTD director Bill McMullen said he largely agreed with Busck.
“I don’t think 2010 is the year to go to win,” McMullen said. “I’m kind of leaning to 2012.”
Delaying the tax election would give RTD a chance to try to secure $1 billion the agency hopes to get from the federal government for FasTracks, he said.
RTD is bidding for the money from the Federal Transit Administration for trains from Union Station to Denver International Airport and Arvada/Wheat Ridge.
Over the next year and a half, RTD hopes to meet requirements set by the FTA that will guarantee the flow of the federal money.
“If the feds don’t buy in, why would the average voter buy in?” McMullen said.
RTD has a $2.45 billion shortfall in funds needed to build all of FasTracks by 2017, as originally planned.
In 2004, metro Denver voters approved a 0.4 percent sales tax to pay for the project, which includes six new trains in the area and extensions to existing rail lines.
Overly optimistic estimates of sales-tax growth and the underestimation of construction costs have put RTD in its financial hole, and agency planners say the existing tax needs to double to build the whole system on schedule.
Also at the mayors’ gathering Thursday, transit backers said they are trying to raise $200,000 from businesses to conduct focus groups and polling aimed at helping RTD directors decide when to seek the tax increase.
RTD political consultant Maria Garcia Berry warned the mayors caucus that voters locally and nationally are fixated on economic issues and intense interviews with focus groups are needed to determine whether there will be support for a tax hike this fall.
“It’s the economy and jobs,” she said of voters’ priorities these days. “There is not a lot of optimism out there.”
Asked if support for a FasTracks tax might rise if the project is pitched as a jobs generator, Berry said, “One of our concerns is that economic stimulus has a bad rap.”
“Voters see it as deficit spending” that will weigh down the economy, she said. “It does not help that 80 percent of the stimulus has yet to be spent.”
RTD has been looking at 2010 or 2012 for the tax vote, and not actively considering next year, because experts say voter turnout is extremely low in odd-year elections and low turnout would not work in RTD’s favor.
Jeffrey Leib: 303-954-1645 or jleib@denverpost.com
