Editor’s note: This story was updated following council meetings in Sylvania and Ottawa Hills Monday night
The Toledo Area Regional Transit Authority’s push to replace two property levies with a sales tax gained some early steam Monday night as council members in Ottawa Hills approved a resolution on the matter and councilmen in Sylvania agreed to hear the issue further and showed support of sending it to the voters in November.
TARTA officials gave presentations to the local jurisdictions via Zoom Monday, asking for help in their vision for an improved transit experience throughout Lucas County. It was the first two scheduled presentations from the agency.
“We need to completely reimagine TARTA,” TARTA General Manager Kimberly Dunham said during a presentation in front of Sylvania City Council.
The transit authority wishes to replace its two existing property taxes collected in Toledo, Sylvania, Sylvania Township, Ottawa Hills, Maumee, Waterville, and Rossford with a half-cent sales tax collected throughout Lucas County as well as Rossford.
An expected revenue boost from such a sales tax would be used to reinstate service cuts made in recent years -- most notably the elimination in early 2019 of Sunday and holiday buses -- as well as expanding operations throughout Lucas County, lengthening service hours, and amassing local funding matches for federal grants that would be used to replace TARTA’s aging, breakdown-prone bus fleet.
But before the countywide sales tax can go on the Nov. 3 ballot, the legislative bodies of all current member jurisdictions must approve a resolution admitting Lucas County as a new member, as must the Lucas County Board of Commissioners request membership.
Three times before -- most recently in 2018 -- such resolution-gathering campaigns have failed, with the Sylvania Township trustees voting against the idea all three times by 2-1 votes and Maumee City Council opposing it in 2010 as well.
The township trustees’ receptiveness to the proposal when they convene at 5 p.m. Tuesday could thus be the strongest indicator of whether it gets to the ballot this time around, although in past years not all of the various councils had voted before the township effectively vetoed it.
Most notably in that regard, Sylvania City Council had voted a 3-3 tie on the 2018 proposal and was planning to revisit it at a following meeting until the township trustees voted it down.
Members of the Ottawa Hills Village Council waived three hearings on the matter and approved the resolution proposed.
On Monday, Sylvania City Councilmember Douglas Haynam, a vocal skeptic of the proposal, said he was “impressed” with the new direction that TARTA has begun to take under Ms. Dunham’s leadership, pushing him to support putting the proposal on the Nov. 3 ballot.
“I am inclined to support sending this to the voters throughout Lucas County,” Mr. Haynam said.
Mr. Haynam and councilmembers did not however place their support on the resolution, asking instead for an amendment.
“I think the way it’s drafted is a specific endorsement,” Mr. Haynam said of the resolution. “…What I have proposed is not a specific endorsement, but an agreement to still allow Lucas County to join and a recognition of allowing this to go to the voters directly.”
TARTA is the only major transit authority in Ohio that uses property taxes for its local tax subsidy.
Before the pandemic prompted shelter-in-place orders that have slashed into economic activity across the United States and elsewhere, the half-cent sales tax was forecast to nearly double the transit authority’s estimated local subsidy.
New sales-tax estimates remain to be calculated, Laura Koprowski, the transit authority’s newly hired spokesman said Friday.
“As there has been no event in recent history similar to the pandemic, it is difficult to project the effect on sales tax revenue,” she said. “Therefore, we are working with the county to try to understand and anticipate the effects on current and future sales tax revenues.”
Even if the revenue forecast declines, the spokesman said, TARTA’s board of trustees “still believes a county-wide sales tax is a more equitable and fair dispersal of public transportation tax burden” than the existing levies are.
The Toledo City Council meeting Tuesday is scheduled to start at 4 p.m. TARTA has not yet finished arrangements to discuss the plan with the Waterville, Rossford, or Maumee councils or the county commissioners. The Sylvania City Council has scheduled a Committee of the Whole meeting, where TARTA officials will again make their pitch on May 18.
First Published May 3, 2020, 10:42 p.m.
