Mitch Perry
Showing once again that she’s determined to make a mark on the Hillsborough Area Regional Transit board, member Kathleen Shanahan expressed frustration today that she wasn’t aware of any financial requests that the transit agency had made of its local legislative delegation, a month before the 2015 legislative session in Tallahassee.
“I feel like we’re going to miss this opportunity with this surplus in the budget,” Shanahan said, referring to the state’s $1 billion budget surplus going into the session.
HART CEO Katharine Eagan, however, said she had met with several state legislators or their staff recently about acquiring more state funding to help pay for a regional fare card. HART will begin installing smart card readers on all of its buses beginning this spring to use with the new fare cards.
Hillsborough County Commission Chairwoman Sandy Murman chimed in, saying that the HART board is the only one she’s serving on where she has not received a copy of the legislative agenda. “You’ve got two former legislators (referring to herself and former state Senator and current County Commissioner Les Miller) that carry a lot of influence, and I think I would just like to see a hard copy of what we’re asking for.” She said that would be helpful when talking to delegation members.
Miller said the board should have been talking to state lawmakers in December, not February.
HART’s lobbyist in Tallahassee is Justin Day with the Advocacy Group at Cardenas Partners. Murman suggested that he address the board at their next meeting, scheduled to take a place a day before the legislative session commences on March 3.
