RTA VOTES .5% TRANSIT FUNDING SOURCE

Calls for $200 Million Bonding Authority

Special to the Readers of Milwaukeeworld.com

By Michael Horne

and the Milwaukee World Hound Dog Team

The Southeast Wisconsin Regional Transit Authority [SEWRTA] recommended a .5% sales tax today, Monday November 10th, 2008 and called for bonding authority for the agency.
A vote was held today by the RTA board (did you even know it was active?) to secure a dedicated funding source for the proposed Kenosha Racine Milwaukee [KRM] commuter rail system. Here is the pdf of the agenda of the meeting, held at 8 a.m. at General Mitchell "International" Airport.
It was hardly the most transparent process in recent legislative history, and leads one to wonder if the mass transit vehicle of the future will be of the stealth nature. Anyway, the vote sure flew under the radar. The Small Business Times, (soon to change its name and format) for instance, first mentioned the vote in a posting on Friday, as did the Racine Journal Times and the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.
Word of the vote never got around to this desk, but there is only so much communicating you can do for $750,000. [See related item below.]
The "Recommendations on RTA Functions and Responsibilities: a Report to Governor Jim Doyle and the Legislature" [pdf], which is what was voted on, calls for the legislature to endow the RTA with the "institutional structure over the entire region, and designates it as the "institution to collect and distribute non-property tax revenue." It also requests the legislature authorize a $200 million bonding authority for the district.
The authority would be the "sole recipient of Federal funds," and can operate beyond it three county geographic region, providing the requesting county pays for the services. It specifically endorses the KRM rail and other rail systems as may be needed in the various communities it serves.
Also, in a bureaucratic move for self-perpetuation, the document calls for the RTA to retain the Southeast Wisconsin Regional Planning Commission [SEWRPC] as its planning agency. The document, interestingly enough, was prepared by SEWRPC staff.

Governor Doyle said last week the approval of the advisory referendum by Milwaukee County voters of a transit sales tax was an impetus for action. The election of Barack Obama, a rail supporter from Chicago, and Joe Biden, who took Amtrak to work every day for three decades also sends a signal that America is back on track.
“I think the state has a very important responsibility — as most states have done — to set up a framework that allows counties and municipalities to join together in a regional transit authority and giving them some method to raise the funds to provide the transit,” Doyle said. We cannot stand by and watch Milwaukee "crumble," he added.
"Way to go, Governor," was the blogged response of Julia Taylor of the Greater Milwaukee Committee, the governor's Milwaukee appointment to the authority's board of directors.

FUN FACT!
Since the establishment of SEWRTA in October 2006, it has collected $1,800,000 in motor vehicle fees from the Wisconsin Department of Transportation.
A significant share has gone to pay communications fees for public outreach, including $496,000 in Phase I (now closed, including $50,700 for "communications strategy"); $115,000 for Phase II ("$50,000 outreach elected officials" and "$65,000 outreach public") and an ongoing Phase III program of continuing consultation totaling $140,443 as of September 30th, 2008. Not a bad payday for Mueller Communications, which has the contract for publicizing this meeting you never heard of. Lobbying fees of $115,000 were collected by Foley & Lardner and by the Capitol Group in Madison during the last session of the legislature. SEWRTA has had no lobbying activity since January of this year. Mueller is also the agency for the embattled SEWRPC, which is in a recertification fight.

Not Too Late to Oppose SEWRPC -- Act Today!

Written comments on replacing the planning agency with one including representatives of urban interests are due today at wisconsin.fhwa@fhwa.dot.gov.

--Michael Horne