Joe Henderson
Around 7 p.m. last Friday, my wife and I drove from Brandon to the beautiful new Sumner High School in southern Hillsborough County. It took us an hour to complete the 13.5-mile journey.
There was about a 2.5-mile backup just trying to get off Interstate 75 onto Gibsonton Drive.
It was all about traffic volume. Our path was not impeded by a wreck or road construction. Simply put, there were too many cars competing for too little space.
Why bring this up?
Because runaway growth in that area finally reached the snapping point. Chris Farkas, operations chief for Hillsborough’s public schools, notified developers that the district can’t proceed with plans to build three new schools to meet what he called “urgent needs.”
The hope to add capacity for 6,500 additional students is on hold pending approval by Hillsborough County Development Services. In a letter, Farkas said the agency cited “inadequate transportation infrastructure and their lack of funding to improve the roadways.”
The district appealed that decision.
This isn’t just about school construction. This edict essentially slams the door on any new development in south Hillsborough. It will have a wide-ranging social, economic, and environmental impact.
This is a good time to mention Hillsborough County Commissioner Stacy White. He filed a lawsuit to overturn the 1% sales tax voters approved more than two years ago. The money from the All For Transportation measure is supposed to pay for things like roads and other transit options.
White, a Republican, didn’t like the amendment’s wording, though. It mandated a citizens’ oversight board to make sure officials spent the money properly. It also set specific funding allocations for county municipalities.
White said then it was about eliminating those issues and not about over-turning the tax. In June 2019, Judge Rex Barbas essentially agreed and struck down the scope of the oversight committee’s powers and the spending allocations. The judge left those decisions up to elected officials, which was White’s original argument.
That settled it, right?
Nope. White appealed that decision.
The issue is in the Florida Supreme Court now, and who knows when it will decide the matter. The Court doesn’t appear to be in any hurry. Meanwhile, the tax collection continues, with about $400 million distributed to various agencies. Projects are on hold, though, because no one knows what the future will bring.
This is a fine mess, isn’t it?
In his letter, Farkas noted, “There are currently no new sites where HCPS can locate a school that has adequate transportation infrastructure to support a school in South County, and that is a problem that must be addressed.”
By the way, White was on the Hillsborough School Board before successfully running for the Commission. Fun facts.
This problem didn’t bubble up overnight. Planners warned for years – decades, really – that essentially unregulated growth would choke that part of the county. Housing developments sprung up seemingly overnight with no supporting infrastructure.
The Republican-controlled Commission, at the urging of builders, kept impact fees far below a standard needed to support the population explosion. In May, commissioners finally raised it for the first time since 1985.
It had been about $388 for a new 2,000-square foot home. The fee will be $3,300 for the same size home after a phased-in increase.
That won’t help the immediate problem, though.
That new Sumner High School I mentioned?
It’s the largest high school in Hillsborough history, designed for 2,500 students. When it opened in August, it had an expected enrollment of 3,100 students – although that was mitigated by students who chose e-learning.
Farkas warned, “… time is of the essence for the school district. We will be unable to provide capacity required for our students if we cannot reach a quick resolution.”
Quick?
Are you kidding me?
Nothing about this issue happens quickly, especially on the roadways.
3 comments
Karen Jaroch
December 14, 2020 at 4:30 pm
Joe, this is a hot mess, but it is the MPO, not Stacy White, who has failed us. Instead, of addressing our inadequate road capacity and failing F-rated roads, they have been pursuing trains and assorted mass transit projects. The majority of the sales tax dollars would go to those projects and NOT be able to be used to build new road capacity for schools! Also, after GoHillsborough failed the BOCC approved an $800M plan using existing property taxes to add both sidewalks and new road capacity which could have been built near existing and future school sites but the new democrat-majority BOCC chose to tank that plan in favor of spending our property taxes on other priorities. But it is the MPO’s failure to plan and it wasn’t due to alarms not being raised. Indeed, Cindy Stuart in her capacity as School Board representative to the MPO sounded off on this critical issue many, many times since the School Board was given a seat at the MPO’s table. Stacy White is a hero for fighting for all residents of Hillsborough County, not just the fat cat downtown developers who bankrolled the tax campaign and stand to benefit from the millions of tax dollars that will be funneled to their downtown Tampa developments while parents and students in the rest of the area are caught up in the resulting gridlock!
Tom
December 16, 2020 at 10:25 am
God forbid we should have leaders “pursuing trains and assorted mass transit projects” when we could be building more roads and putting more cars on those roads. We’re not Europe, we’re not Japan, we don’t need no stinking’ mass transit projects–we’re Floriduh, and we do things the same way we always have, results be damned. More roads! More cars! Pave it over, baby!
Sharon
December 16, 2020 at 1:22 pm
Laziness and bias results in such poor reporting. The Hillsborough MPO transportation planning organization specifically added a School Board member as a voting member of their Board in 2015 to help coordinate the funding of road capacity and improvements needed for new schools. Cindy Stuart raised the big red flag at the March 3, 2020 MPO meeting clearly stating there are ZERO transportation plans or funding for road improvements and road widening for ANY of the 38 new schools planned in Hillsborough County. While we still await the FL Supreme Court ruling on the All for Transportation (AFT) sales tax lawsuit, that $16B massive tax hike not only provides NO funding for new road capacity, including for any needed capacity for new schools, the AFT specifically prohibits that tax from funding new road capacity. The MPO’s long term transportation plan created just last year ignores funding new road capacity and the road needs of new schools. The fact is other than Cindy Stuart, the only other elected official to raise the red flag about no new road capacity funding in Hillsborough County was Commissioner Stacy White….and White was thrown off the MPO Board by the Democrats who took over the Hillsborough County Commission in 2018. The Hillsborough MPO, who added a school board member specifically to address transportation needs for schools, is a paper pushing failed transportation planning bureaucracy. The blame for such abject failure is the Hillsborough MPO, the Hillsborough County bureaucrats and the rest of the Hillsborough County Commissioners who refuse to responsibly fund needed new road capacity in the county. Henderson’s consistent though – ignore the real facts and blame those he does not like. http://www.eyeontampabay.com/2020/03/with-16-billion-aft-transit-tax-theres.html
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