It’s not much fun being a Regional Transportation District board member these days. Everyone has an idea of how big a tax hike you should send to voters this fall to finish FasTracks, and no matter what you do, some folks are going to be upset with your decision.
This growing pressure played itself out most recently in the board’s decision to delay a scheduled vote on the specifics of the ballot measure. The board had intended to decide this question today, but pushed back the decision to March 8.
“I know that all of you understand the quintessential importance of getting this right as we have only one chance to do so,” RTD board chairman Lee Kemp said in a letter requesting more time for analysis and polling.
By all means let the board continue its assessment for a couple more weeks, particularly given the sharply differing recommendations it is grappling with and some apparently confusing polling data. Ultimately, however, we hope board members remember that their decision shouldn’t depend solely on political pressure and polling. It should be based on what’s sensible policy at a time when funding for a variety of critical public needs, from education to municipal services, is under pressure and many voters are struggling with their own household budgets.
Voters in the next few years are only going to approve so much new revenue — if any — for government. And while we’ve said repeatedly that completion of the FasTracks system is important and may require a higher sales tax, we don’t think the original timetable for build-out must be adhered to at all costs.
That’s why we were pleasantly surprised when the district’s own staff decided to recommend the board seek a sales tax hike of 0.2 percentage points — on top of the current 0.4 percent tax — instead of the 0.4 percentage-point hike required to finish FasTracks by the end of this decade. With an increase of 0.2 percentage points, 65 percent of FasTracks would be completed by 2020, with the remainder by 2027.
That prospect is apparently unacceptable to the Metro Mayors Caucus, however, which is lobbying hard for doubling the current tax to expedite construction.
A few mayors are even threatening to withhold support if the board opts for a less ambitious proposal. For example, Broomfield Mayor Pat Quinn said he and other political leaders in the northwest suburbs might balk at supporting the 0.2 percent. “The way it’s drafted now, Northwest rail is so far out that two-tenths is just impossible for our elected officials to support,” Quinn said last month.
But is seven years really such an intolerable delay for a project that was first approved by voters in 2004 and wouldn’t be finished even in the best of circumstances for at least seven more years?
A complicating factor in the board’s decision is a recent poll suggesting the larger the tax proposal for FasTracks, the more likely the public is to support it because of voters’ eagerness to finish the project. To say this finding is surprising would be an understatement. It is hard to imagine how a campaign proposing to double a tax would have an easier time than one asking for half that amount.
And as chairman Kemp rightly said, the board has only one chance to get this right.
