Hot off the presses is this new, new opinion from the County Attorney on the possibility of bringing back the half-cent transit tax in the spring of 2008.
Essentially the opinion argues that the tax cannot be brought back before October 2009. As such, it reverses what Marvin Bethune had told the Mecklenburg County commission as recently as two weeks ago. What changed?
State Sen. Dan Clodfelter happened.
Or rather Clodfelter made local Democrats aware of a little oversight in new state law that Clodfelter, as chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, almost surely had to know about as the law was being written earlier this year. Namely, the General Assembly — as part of the great Medicaid, local option tax dance of 2007 — “forgot” that Mecklenburg has had for the last 10 years an extra half-cent sales tax dedicated to transit. Forgot about it at the same moment that 65,000 signatures were being gathered to put the repeal of the tax on the November ballot.
If you believe that, then you probably still think Jim Black is innocent.
Clearly Mecklenburg County Commissioner Dan Bishop’s attempt to get a resolution from the county to put the tax back on the ballot in the spring caused too much political angst among the tax’s current supporters who preferred to pour down gloom and doom in the event of repeal instead of defend the current transit plan.
Now a fix appears. The 2007 legislation builds in a step-down process for a half-cent of the current local option sales tax that makes no allowance for Mecklenburg’s situation. This, the opinion argues, binds Mecklenburg to the timeline for that process regards.
I’ve only read through the opinion once, so I may be missing something, but it does not seem terribly compelling. However, it does not need to be.
All the local Powers That Be needed was enough of a fig-leaf to shield themselves from what had the makings of a winning argument for repeal — namely, kill the tax to kill the plan, then bring the tax back to fund a better plan. Now they will say that is impossible and ramp up the gloom and doom even more.
Just another little present from your friends in the North Carolina General Assembly.
