County continues eyeing roads surtax

The Alachua County Commission continued discussing how to deal with the backlog in road improvements and repairs to no avail.  The board failed to come up a unanimous decision during Tuesday’s special commission meeting dealing with public works’ budget issues.

Commissioner Paula DeLaney was not present at the meeting, and the board decided to continue discussing the issue at a later date.

All commissioners that were present said they understood the urgency of improving roads in the county and appeared to agree that a sales surtax was necessary to manage the expenses.

Commissioners Lee Pinkoson and Mike Byerly suggested a half-cent surtax instead of a one-cent surtax.  Pinkoson also suggested figuring out what projects exactly were going to receive the money and for how long the tax would be in effect before asking the public to support it.

“I think the only thing that has a chance is [road] maintenance only and short term,” Pinkoson said. “Somehow we need to figure out a better way of educating the public about what the projects are. We have a real problem here.”

The decision on whether to create such a tax would lie with the voters in the 2012 election. The commission also discussed whether the county should be responsible for placing the initiative on the ballot, or if the county should educate the public on the road issues and leave it to the residents to place the initiative.

However, Commissioner Rodney Long said he was hesitant to spend taxpayers’ dollars on educating the public about the road issues before the board has a set plan on what it wants to do.

During the public comments part of the meeting, several residents expressed their lack of trust in the commission. One resident blamed the commission for not having “sold” the idea of spending on roads in the past to the public and instead supported non-essential programs like Wild Spaces and Public Places.

During the meeting, public works staff did a presentation on how much money has been spent and how much money is needed for roads. Staff reported that the current backlog for roads is $378 million. The road problem has been growing for the past 30 years and will continue to worsen if the county doesn’t do something about it.

In a 2010 pavement condition analysis, the public works department determined that 49 percent of roads in the county need major repair and 85 percent need some capital repair.