Transit tax campaign aims at non-riding St. Louis County voters
John Nations
A campaign for a half-cent increase in the transit tax for Metro will stress the stake the majority of St. Louis County voters — who don’t travel on buses or MetroLink – have in the region’s transit system.
“We’re going to help people understand that they benefit from public transit whether or not they ever ride it,” Chesterfield Mayor John Nations, who is running the campaign, said Tuesday. County Executive Charlie Dooley on Monday asked the county council to put the proposal on the April 6 ballot.
The mayor’s home town was stung by Metro’s cutbacks last March which ended almost all bus service outside of Interstate 270. “It had a detrimental effect on our businesses” because the service reductions left many workers in in his city’s businesses without transportation, Nations said. Their jobs were such places as nursing homes and the stores and restaurants in Chesterfield Valley.
Some families of nursing home residents in Chesterfield were shocked when workers who had cared for their loved ones for a long time were about to quit because they didn’t have buses to get to work, Nations said.
Supporters of the transit tax increase said Metro’s cutbacks last March opened the eyes of many people who felt they had no need for transit because they never use it. Many people consider public transit as a welfare program when it is an economic necessity, Nations said.
Now Nations, a prominent West County leader, probably will be the most visible spokesman for the tax campaign. And some business people who have not been involved in the issue will participate as well.
The campaign is seeking support from mayors; the St. Louis County Municipal League endorsed the increase last week. It also wants employers to explain to their workers why they need the tax increase.
Dooley aides played a major role in the last two transit tax efforts. Mike Coleman, a Dooley campaign aide, ran a campaign that ended when the county had the proposal withdrawn before a Feb. 5, 2008 vote because of an uproar about Metro losing an expensive lawsuit relating to the MetroLink extension from Forest Park to Shrewsbury. Darin Cline, a Dooley aide, left the county executive’s office to manage the campaign for the Nov. 4 election and returned after the vote. The proposal then lost by about 16,000 votes out of about 509,000 cast.
Nations hopes to build on November’s support to win in April. That election’s outcome may depend how well his campaign beats the bushes to get its supporters to the polls. Most people who went to the polls last November are unlikely to return in April whose local elections produce turnouts that are usually a third or less of presidential balloting.
Meanwhile, supporters have formed a campaign committee, Advance St. Louis, which has raised $72,100 thus far. Washington University, which has five MetroLink stations near its facilities, has been the top donor, providing $25,000.
Other major donors were Tarlton Corp., $12,000; Sam Fox, $10,000; Belleau Farm which Anheuser-Busch heir Adolphus Busch IV owns and Peter Von Gontard, $5,000 each.
I’d give my right arm to see Fox, Busch, and Von Gontard ride the Metro.
If nursing homes and retail establishments want to pay people such low wages that they can’t afford transportation, then these commercial businesses should pay the subsidy. Why should the working people of St. Louis county be subsidizing businesses in Chesterfield?
And as far as John Nations goes … your city has a 2009 budget of nearly $36 million, and a median household income of nearly $84,000 a year. By contrast, my home town of Ferguson has an 2009 budget of $16.3 million, and a median household income of $35,600 a year. Why should we pay higher taxes to subsidize bus service to Chesterfield mall? How much would it cost Chesterfield to run a shuttle from the Ballas Transit center to major Chesterfield businesses? Why don’t you tax your own citizens to bring out the cheap labor they are demanding?
The tax hike is permanent, not 15 years: From what I know, it would appear jniles is just making those last two claims up. Unless, of course, he has assembled some actual proof to accompany his Washington Policy Center conjecture.
I know this sounds cruel, but it is what it is. People have chosen to work for these business entities. And I applaud them for working. But, I do not see how it is my financial responsibility to pay for their transportation. I pay over 1.00 per gallon in taxes to drive my car. I already pay my fair share. If these businesses are complaining about workers not being able show up on time, let them pay for their transportation. Or, pay them more as supply and demand suggests. Another possibility is for these businesses to partner together and provide transportation.
Perhaps Nations should consider a Chesterfield tax to support Metro. The chicken littles said the world would end the last time the cuts occurred and it didn’t. The hospitals didn’t close. The stores were still open. Metro still does not have a system that forces people to buy tickets to ride its train. They just want more money and their disingenuous campaign promising to make this money loser even bigger so it can lose even more money and require even higher taxes is simply embarrassing in its lack of logic. I will be voting no again and encouraging others to do so, as well. The people have spoken and will speak even louder when they defeat this and Charlie Dooley who introduced the idea.
I managed a hotel in St. Charles and had to rely on Metro to bus my housekeepers from the city to my hotel (or a bus stop nearby). I now work in Clayton and we have some employees that take a bus to the Metrolnk to get to Clayton. At Saint Louis Galleria, there were special needs folks that used the Metro system to get to their jobs in the food court.
Employers throughout the city rely on Metro to transport their employees in from Illinois and West County. After cleaning many hotel rooms over the years when my housekeepers couldn’t make it in to work due to transportation problems, I have become a big fan of public transportation. I’ll vote “yes”.
Logicprevails, it didn’t prevail this time. You have repeated the mantra that businesses need Metro to bring their employees to work. But you haven’t made a case where it is MY responsibility to subsidize the ride for YOUR employees. So you got stuck cleaning hotel rooms because your employees couldn’t make it to work … how is that MY problem?
Most major hotels have shuttle buses running to the airport on a regular schedule. How hard would it be to have them go a few minutes out of their way and stop at North Hanley Station? Instead, you want the taxpayer to foot the bill for millions (billions?) of dollars in construction and operating costs so your employees can get a cheap ride. That may make perfect sense if you own a hotel, but to the rest of us, it’s a rip off.
the Post forgot one other prominent donor, the SEIU’s PAC…Let’s see: Dooley, the SEIU and a bunch of rich guys who want to make sure the maid can get to work…hmm…strike three
jjk - Thanks for spurring me to take a look at the contributions. In fact, three unions gave a total of $8,000 to this campaign. In addition, they received $2,500 from Schuchat, Cook & Werner, a law firm specializing in representing unions. So the unions that will get the work, and the lawyers who will negotiate their contracts, chipped in over 10 grand. Tarlton, presumably hoping to get contracting business from Metro, tossed in 12 grand. And they received $1,000 from Tom Shrout, a professional transit advocate for an organization which is itself supported by a conglomeration of transit beneficiaries. I have no idea what Mr. Shrout earns for this position, because inexplicably, CMT’s annual report contains no budget or financial data at all.
And since the Post is so sensitive about lobbyists contributing to campaigns, somebody should bring up the fact that this campaign is being RUN by a lawyer-lobbyist. For details, see Mr. Ketcher’s website. Hey, I just did!