[Editor’s note: This article was based on the initial video of Chairman Boyce’s comments. That video was taken down and replaced with another update. I’ve replaced the (now) broken link with a link to the second version]
In his weekly video update, Cobb County Commission Chairman Michael Boyce said that the county’s support for the public transit bills working their way through the Georgia house and senate depends on having a project list. He said based on the revenue from the SPLOST tax, a one percent sales tax would generate $140 million.
“The concern was, if you collect this money, what are you going to be using it for? The experience in Cobb has been, unless you can tell me what you’re going to use my money for, unless you have a project list, then we’re not going to support the tax,” he said.
He said that he had heard from the chairmen of adjoining counties that they wanted to make sure they had some control over how the money is spent.
Boyce said deputy county manager Jackie McMorris and district 2 commissioner Bob Ott are the people working on influencing the legislation on the county’s behalf.
He said the earliest a referendum would be held on whether to support a local tax to fund the legislation would be November of this year, and that it could be later. He said that the counties affected would probably not be holding their referenda at the same time since this is a two-step process: first, the county would have to approve being part of the new system, then a referendum would have to be held to approve or reject a sales tax to fund it.
Watch the full fourteen-minute video of Boyce’s update from CobbTV embedded below:
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