State Rep: House GOP used MARTA funding as ‘political football’
April 8, 2009 at 8:49 am by Thomas Wheatley in NewsWe all know that Senate Bill 120, the legislation that would’ve allowed MARTA to exercise control over its own finances and possibly prevent the transit agency from making drastic service cuts, failed on the final night of the legislative session. But why?
In a candid email to his constituents, State Rep. Ralph Long, III, D-Atlanta, says Georgia House Republicans used the bill as a “political football” and threatened to punt the measure if the Fulton and DeKalb delegations didn’t vote for a GOP-endorsed piece of legislation involving freezes on property values.
Long writes in the email:
I will always stay true to my commitment to keep my constituents educated about the pressing issues concerning us today.
On Wednesday, April 1st, two days before the end of the General Assembly’s 2009 session, the Fulton and DeKalb County delegations called a special meeting for the sole purpose of discussing MARTA. At that meeting, the Republican leadership approached the two counties with what they said was a deal. According to the Republican leader, they needed 20 votes to pass S.R. 1, an unpopular bill related to property valuation freezes.
We were told that we must support S.R. 1 in order to give the Republicans the votes they needed. In return, the MARTA bill would pass. If S.R 1 did not pass, we were told that the MARTA bill would die in committee and not be brought up for consideration before the end of sine die. The Republican leader said that he lives closer to Disney World than any MARTA train station, and that he only occasionally rides MARTA to ball games.
Emphasis ours, of course. Another Democrat lawmaker who was involved with the discussion referenced above corroborated the contents of the email to CL. He also named who allegedly made the “Disney World” remark, although we’re going to contact him first to give him a chance to respond.
The rest of the email, including comments from our conversation with Long, is after the jump.
The members of the Fulton and DeKalb delegations thought it in the best interests of the citizens of Georgia, and the citizens of their districts, not to pass S.R. 1, which would have an especially detrimental effect on areas hit hard by the foreclosure crisis. We were offended by the partisan stance taken by the Republican leader.
Several members of the delegation pleaded with the Republican leader, reminding him that Fulton and DeKalb have solely supported MARTA for 30 years with no cooperation from the State of Georgia. That pleading was to no avail. The Republican’s posture was matter of fact, nonchalant, and dismissive to our cries and the concerns of MARTA riders. The members of the DeKalb and Fulton County delegations decided to stick together against levying transportation priorities against base partisan concerns.
This state representative finds the actions of the Republican Leadership regarding MARTA disgraceful.
So this is another angle to why the MARTA funding bill failed?
“It is the angle why it failed,” Long said when contacted by CL about the email on Tuesday night. “It is the absolute anchor.”
“I implore you to take [that information] and report it, do your job,” Long said, adding that he wanted the information to be known even if it meant political retribution from the Republican-controlled House. “I could be stripped of my committees for it, but I don’t care. I’m [at the Capitol] to represent my constituents and this is an important issue to us. And that’s why I released it.”
“The Republican leadership can make anything happen,” he said. “But they chose not to do that because they wanted to make MARTA a partisan issue. The issue of transportation and dealing with people’s livelihoods is well beyond partisan politics…MARTA is the vitality of the city, for the most part. And if we don’t address our transportation concerns, nationally, we look like a stupid state.
“My district, District 61, is right by the Oakland, Lakewood, East Point and College Park train stations,” Long said. “So many of my constituents depend on those four stations. They’re white, black, professional folks, everyone. MARTA is not a partisan issue… And it’s time [the Fulton and DeKalb delegation] start speaking up…This is going to kill the city. And the reputation of the state. A great state.”
House Republicans wanted the Fulton and DeKalb delegation to support, SR1, legislation that would freeze property tax assessments. Long and another Democrat lawmaker who spoke off the record said the majority of the delegation opposed the measure because it would’ve severely impacted local governments in the two counties, both of which have recently seen increases in the number of foreclosures.
We’re checking in with other members of the Fulton and DeKalb delegations, as well as the lawmaker who allegedly made the “Disney World” comment. We’ll report later.
April 8th, 2009 at 10:32 am
Why is this state so backwards? And why to Cobb and Gwinnett counties think that if they dont have MARTA, they won’t have crime? That’s quite stretch, considering it seems hard to steal a TV and get onto MARTA. More likely they will come to the ‘burbs by car…
besides, cutting MARTA funds and services doesnt solve the traffic problems, the poverty issues or the crime problems that metro Atlanta faces. the GOP needs to stop thinking that only poor minorities use MARTA. and honestly, so what if they did? They should be ignored because they are poor? thats essentially what they are saying. disgusting.
April 8th, 2009 at 11:51 am
Thank you for following the lead and probing into this story. Political horse-trading is nothing new, but it’s good to know the real reasons why metro Atlanta will continue to suffer at the hands of a seemingly cavalier rural-dominanted legislature.
As the AJC continues to report on Lisa Ann Taylor and kids bringing knives to school, I am glad to know that at least one publication (CL) is tuned into the issues that truly matter to the daily lives of the people of Atlanta.
April 8th, 2009 at 12:53 pm
“The issue of transportation and dealing with people’s livelihoods is well beyond partisan politics…”
“MARTA is not a partisan issue… And it’s time [the Fulton and DeKalb delegation] start speaking up…This is going to kill the city. And the reputation of the state. A great state.”
AMEN.
April 8th, 2009 at 2:11 pm
This is unbelievable! Is there anything that can done? The behavior of this do-nothing, accomplish-nothing state legislature is unconscionable! The Republican leadership needs to be voted out of office, but unfortunately, their constituents are too ignorant and simple-minded to ever accomplish that!
April 8th, 2009 at 3:11 pm
c’mon wheatley…spill the beans. who was it???
April 8th, 2009 at 3:14 pm
as a yankee that moved here 5 years ago, it has always been laughable to me how many “movers & shakers” in this city want to equate it with NY or LA when they can’t even get it together to implement a decent transit system. how that is not one of the highest priorities is beyond my understanding. trust me, atlanta/georgia politicians & leaders, when i say that everyone else, especially up north, is laughing at you over this.
April 8th, 2009 at 3:21 pm
This is truly disgusting. I was raised in Atlanta and I have been a MARTA monthly (now breeze) card carrying member since it’s inception. While I will be the first to admit that there are many problems with Atlanta’s mass transit, I firmly believe that cutting service and not letting them spend the $65,000,000 surplus that they are currently sitting on is asinine. It’s a shame that all these people who neither take MARTA nor within radioactive fallout of the city are the ones making decisions in regards to it.
Perhaps, when you purchase your breeze card you have to show proof that you live in the Fulton or Dekalb counties or either be an out of state resident to receive the current fares. If you cannot prove this then their should be a 50% luxury fee. I mean since they do nothing to contribute to the taxes that pay for MARTA why should they have the luxury of riding it. Then maybe all 20 metro counties would be an active participate instead of bringing in their white flight buses to MY city’s mass transit stations.
April 8th, 2009 at 3:31 pm
@james, my good man,
I gotta give the gent a chance to respond.
April 8th, 2009 at 3:49 pm
wheatley/rep long –
keep up the good work and please keep us posted on further developments.
April 8th, 2009 at 3:50 pm
Great work Thomas, can’t wait to hear what this person has to say for himself.
@amy Nobody is laughing where I’m sitting. NYC MTA has it’s own $1.2 billion deficit, service cuts and fare hikes to worry about.
April 8th, 2009 at 4:33 pm
BTI, you’re right about the seriousness of the issue. Most large transit agencies, (MTA, BART, SEPTA, take your pick) are all facing financially difficult times.
What is laughable, however, is MARTA’s escalation in rhetoric and their idle threats of service cuts (Fridays and Special Events). They placed their bets on SB120 passing and they lost, and now they’re running around like chickens with their heads cut off. None of the other agencies have resorted to such fearmongering – in order to prevent deep service cuts they’re taking responsible actions, i.e. simply raising their fares and restructuring their service, but responsibility is something MARTA seems desperately afraid of.
April 8th, 2009 at 4:37 pm
Un*ucking believable! Or maybe is it too believable. The Georgia Republicans are repugnant buffoons. They came in with supposedly lofty goals and said they were going to make a real diffreence to real people. They are tearing up our great state. The sooner we get those losers outta here, the better!
April 8th, 2009 at 4:50 pm
Westside Atl,
All of those other transit systems you have mentioned get state funding. They are in a completely different scenario. There states look after them, trying to improve them instead of harm them. I do not understand why the state has any say over Marta since they do not pay towards it. In a bad economy you do not make major improvements to the system. You just try and stay afloat. There is no reason not to spend the improvement money on just keeping it going until the economy turns around. Lets join the 21st century Georgia. Do we want to be rednecks or do we want to have a great transit system and a beautiful city?
PS
A beautiful city will benefit the rural areas too. More money comes into the state, therefore more money for the toothless yokels.
April 8th, 2009 at 4:58 pm
damn you wheatley, you and your “standards.”
April 8th, 2009 at 5:05 pm
There is a good reason not to give them access to the capital money. MARTA has approx. $65 million in capital reserves. Based on their FY10 budget, they’d tap into $24 million of that in FY10 and then burn through the remaining $41 million in FY11. By FY12, they project an $89M shortfall (with no reserves left).
While freeing up the capital money is certainly a short-term fix, it is by no means a panacea as people have made it out to be. It spends money that was set aside specifically for expansion (i.e. Memorial Dr BRT, BeltLine, etc.). Using up the capital reserves (which MARTA can bond against) only makes those projects less viable in the long-run.
In the short-term, MARTA needs to raise fares, renegotiate labor rates with the unions, shrink their police force (it’s currently the state’s 8th or 9th largest) and restructure bus service.
This is just wishful thinking on my part, but if MARTA shows they’re willing to roll up their sleeves and do some hard work instead of flailing their arms around saying “we’ve got to cut a day of service!” they might even gain enough respect from the state to get some funding support.
April 8th, 2009 at 8:57 pm
WestsideATL–
Is that you, Rep. Jill Chambers (R-Decatur)? Stop posting the same talking points on every blog.
Rep. Chambers, you know that you’re not in control of MARTA, right? And that your district has the highest MARTA ridership in the state? Why don’t you stop fighting what’s best for your constituents. thanks.
April 8th, 2009 at 9:28 pm
It was Jerry Keen (R-St. Simons) that screwed over MARTA, btw.
April 8th, 2009 at 9:42 pm
I bet the republicans that only ride Marta to Baseball games ever so often won’t drive their families down to turner field if Marta do cut a day of service among some of the families that can’t go pick up their paychecks via MARTA….Bring the popcorn people because this will be a very happy healthy laugh for us all. And just maybe that will be the day that the APD is short 12 officers….hehehehehe…
April 8th, 2009 at 10:41 pm
As someone who rides MARTA daily, I’ve started to wonder if MARTA really needs to expand their service at all. Frankly, they can barely run what amounts to an East/West-North/South system without a ridiculous number of problems. I’d love to have the BeltLine and all the other stuff that would finally make Atlanta a “legit” city (as if we are on the cusp of being a New York or Chicago), but I have too little faith in MARTA’s ability to use that expansion funding properly. And while rate hikes wouldn’t put me out of a place to live, I can’t speak for other people. That said, WestsideATL makes some very good points.
April 8th, 2009 at 11:11 pm
Did Rep. Long explain why the majority of members of the Fulton and DeKalb delegations thought S.R. 1 would have an especially detrimental effect on areas hit hard by the foreclosure crisis?
April 9th, 2009 at 1:40 am
@Westside – I don’t think anyone wants to be in a situation where they have to cash in their assets to spend on operations, but neither does anyone want to be losing 15% of their revenues from one year to the next as their funding stream, dependent on regressive taxes that rise and fall with the economy, takes unprecedented levels of decline.
If by ‘restructure bus service’ you mean eliminate 30 routes, take note that such major service cuts also impact ridership, which in turn impacts fare collection potential, which lowers revenue… this is known as the death spiral and something MARTA is trying desperately to avoid.
April 9th, 2009 at 7:37 am
curious, jon, which routes do you ride? i too take marta everyday, two buses and a train and cover more than 25 miles from east atlanta to alpharetta.
in the more than 18 months i have been doing this, i have had less delays and trouble getting to and fro work than i ever did driving.
April 9th, 2009 at 8:46 am
@JFM – I agree with you that the sales tax is a difficult financing mechanism due to ebbs and flows of the economy, but that’s why MARTA usually has an operating reserve. They’ve tapped that out and now they’re resorting to their capital reserve. The problem is that MARTA’s operating budget is an open wound and this capital money is just a band-aid that will not stop the hemorraging. They’ve got to find a way to spend less money.
Look, I grant everyone here that MARTA serves a critical public need, and the thought of losing any service (whether it’s routes or service frequencies) can stir one’s emotions. MARTA has further stirred the pot with their rhetoric making people fearful of transit doomsdays and apolocalypses, when nothing of the sort will transpire.
They can save money by cutting back frequencies on early morning and late night weekday service for routes where there are only 3 or 4 people per trip and do the same on the weekends. On Sundays, most of the buses in my neighborhood are totally empty. If they do that, and a some of the other belt tightening I mentioned in an earlier post, it should help close the gap.
April 9th, 2009 at 9:41 am
This my friends, is another example of old expired values of a narrow mind, thinking only of issues that support self, rather than the whole!!! Being from NJ, a state with great public transportation, I see why this place has a struggling economy!! What about the students, airport workers and others that keep the city of Atlanta growing… This backward thinking is why the south has a bad rep for being ignorant!!! I love GA living her a decade, but i am more and more thinking of returning to the north, where at least people speak up and dont allow crap like this to happen!!!
April 9th, 2009 at 10:01 am
yes, this sucks, and i am as angry about it as anything, but i am not about to have my region or hometown lectured to by someone extolling the virtues of a state that produced mcgreevey, bob ‘the torch’ toricelli, and america’s worst governor, john corzine.
April 9th, 2009 at 11:55 am
The State of Georgia habitually appears to care more about extending highways into bumblef*ck suburbia than facilitating the center of it’s economic and social source for timely commutes as needed. “Political Football” my ass. This is crap.
April 10th, 2009 at 11:45 am
CRAPTA has always been a financial mess….. remember stories not even 2 years ago about the financial troubles they were in…. MARTA is not even a reliable source of public transportation….
MARTA needs a complete overhaul from top to bottom, cut routes that are not feasible or necessary, expand the subway system (like they should have done ages ago) and quit wasting fees collected on execs and staff that aren’t performing or necessary…. I tried doing ads on MARTA buses and it was a pain in the azz just to do that….
you can blame everyone in the world, but the problem is with MARTA, not the state reps or govt or whoever else people like to blame…..
April 10th, 2009 at 1:34 pm
“MARTA is not even a reliable source of public transportation…”
funny. i get to work five time a week and back home with no problems.
April 10th, 2009 at 3:46 pm
@westsideATL-”They can save money by cutting back frequencies on early morning and late night weekday service for routes where there are only 3 or 4 people per trip and do the same on the weekends. On Sundays, most of the buses in my neighborhood are totally empty.”
That would only add to the problem! The reason why people don’t take MARTA is because it is infrequent and unreliable. You are not considering the population who depends on MARTA who are not 9-5ers. We will never truly be a vibrant city when our public transportation shuts down after 5pm or even midnight.