RICHMOND —State lawmakers shot down a proposal Wednesday that would have allowed Charlottesville and Albemarle County to ask voters for permission to increase the local sales tax by up to one percent to pay for local transit and transportation projects.
A subcommittee of the House Finance Committee killed the proposal in a 6-2 vote Wednesday afternoon, scuttling the local governments’ hopes to establish a new revenue stream that would pay for numerous roads projects that are stalled because of dwindling state funding.
“This bill has been defeated. It can’t come back this session,” said the bill’s patron, Del. David J. Toscano, D-Charlottesville. “They didn’t even want to give the voters a chance to decide if they’d be willing to pay higher taxes for transportation.”
The measure, HB 2161, was among the top legislative priorities for Charlottesville and Albemarle County officials, who say they have been frustrated by what they see as the General Assembly’s
inability — or political unwillingness — to approve a sufficient level of funding for transportation across Virginia. The bill, they said, was an opportunity for the Charlottesville area to choose to solve its own transportation woes.
“We are facing a long and growing list of transportation needs,” Charlottesville Mayor Dave Norris said. “… Our message today is simple: Let’s put it up for a referendum. Let’s let the voters decide.”
A survey of Albemarle County residents conducted between Aug. 20 and Sept. 14 found that more than half said they would be willing to pay more in taxes specifically for transportation projects.
Republican lawmakers on the subcommittee, however, were not persuaded. All six GOP delegates voted against the bill, while the two Democrats voted in its favor.
Del. Ben Cline, R-Rockbridge County, blasted the local officials from Charlottesville and Albemarle County who traveled to Richmond to advocate on behalf of the bill. He chastised them for not moving forward with construction of the western bypass, a 5.5-mile stretch that would circumvent Charlottesville’s highly congested section of U.S. 29.
“It is infuriating that you all refuse to fund the bypass and now you are here asking for more money for projects in your six-year [transportation] plan,” Cline said.
The Charlottesville area’s reluctance to build the bypass, he said, is “choking” the economies of Virginia cities such as Lynchburg and Danville farther south along U.S. 29.
Albemarle County Board of Supervisors Chairman David Slutzky said that building the bypass would cost between $250 million and $300 million. “It would take us a couple hundred years for us to pay for the road he wants,” Slutzky said.
Following the bill’s defeat, Slutzky was hopping mad.
“It was punishment,” he said. “It was mean-spirited. And it was cynical. But that’s how they play it in Richmond.”
Slutzky said it was “ironic” that Cline opposed the bill because one of its primary goals was to finance projects in the U.S. 29 corridor that would have eased gridlock in the Charlottesville area and benefited the economies of localities south of it.
Now that the House GOP members have killed the measure, Slutzky said, Albemarle County may instead impose an additional tax on property owners to pay for the transit and transportation improvements.
“We have no choice,” he said. “We’re going to have to explore the possibility of putting the cost on the back of the property tax.”
The subcommittee’s chairman, Del. Tim Hugo, R-Fairfax County, also spoke against the bill. Hugo said he found it “interesting” that Toscano voted against a bill in 2007 that increased transportation funding in Northern Virginia and Hampton Roads, but on Wednesday sought to let Charlottesville and Albemarle County take a similar step.
Toscano replied that he opposed the bill two years ago because it did not adequately address the transportation needs of the entire state.
Timothy Hulbert of the Charlottesville Regional Chamber of Commerce also appeared at Wednesday’s hearing. Hulbert said the Charlottesville area business community wants Virginia to invest more in its transportation infrastructure, yet it prefers a revenue source other than the sales tax. Hulbert added that the chamber supported the notion of a local referendum on the issue.
Had it been approved, the measure would have generated an estimated $9.2 million for Charlottesville and $11.9 million for Albemarle County in fiscal 2011, according to a fiscal impact statement prepared by the Virginia Department of Taxation.
It was not all bad news Wednesday for the local officials from Charlottesville and Albemarle.
Earlier in the day, a House subcommittee unanimously endorsed a separate bill to allow Charlottesville and Albemarle County to establish a regional transit authority that would oversee the operation and expansion of the Charlottesville area’s bus system.
Under the local officials’ original vision, the regional transit authority would distribute the new sales tax revenue to transit and transportation projects. Without the new revenue, however, the city and county officials said the proposed transit authority would still be essential in expanding the bus system and improving its efficiency.
Yet Toscano, who also introduced the transit authority bill, HB 2158, warned that the measure may have a long and difficult road ahead.
“Some people are hot,” he said. “There may be some payback. But I hope not.”
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