Wheel tax – Memphis Flyer

At weekend gathering, Shelby County Mayor Lee Harri repeats vow to secure passage of wheel tax add-on to provide county funding for MATA. Also pictured are members of the Tommy Van family, hosts for the affair, and Lexie Carter, a co-sponsor of the event.

At its regular monthly meeting on Monday, the Shelby County Commission will take one more crack — the crucial one — at adding $20 to the current county wheel tax in order to contribute roughly $10 million to the operation of the Memphis Area Transit Authority (MATA). On the eve of the vote, County Mayor Lee Harris set an informal deadline of 30 days to achieve a successful outcome for the proposal, which needs 9 votes and netted a maximum of 5 votes on Wednesday in preliminary voting in committee.

Harris mentioned the 30-day figure in conversation at a Saturday night fundraiser in his honor in Lakeland. “Either we pass it outright on Monday, or we’ll find a way to delay the final vote for 30 days,” the Mayor said. “But I predict we’ll get it done.”

The fund-raiser was at the home of Tommy and Monica Van and was primarily a cooperative effort by members of the local Asian and African-American communities. In his remarks to attendees, Harris recapped his argument for the wheel tax add-on as follows:

“There was no more vivid example of the need for increased transit options than a guy named James, an ex-offender. He lives in Frayser, and he finally found a job but, of course, the buses don’t run very frequently on the weekend. And on weekends, instead of missing his shift, he decides to sleep at his job so he can be there the next morning and not miss a shift. So James begged and pleaded that we invest more in transit so he could go home when his shift ends and come back to the job the next day and not have to sleep there.

“And I think about Miss Sarah who said transit is important to her, because she has not had ice cream for years. She says she can’t get ice cream from the grocery store to her house before the ice cream melts. And so she doesn’t buy ice cream anymore.

“So it’s about Miss Sarah and James and Frayser and all the folks who are trying to move around the community and trying to get access to jobs, and trying to create more opportunity for themselves and their family. And that’s the kind of debate I want to have. That’s why I ran for office in the first place. And I’m hopeful that we’ll be able to persuade all parts of this community that these are the right kinds of conversations to have.”

Harris also made reference in his remarks to the currently controversial issue of providing haven for foreign refugees. The mayor held a press conference last week to make public his letter to the U.S. State Department in favor of providing such haven in Shelby County. As he said about that moment on Saturday night:

“We tried to drive a conversation that this community should continue to be a welcoming community for refugees. Refugees, by definition, are individuals who come to this country fleeing persecution, their lives are on the line, and we as a country have the ability to intervene and save families and save lives. And so we should do it. We can try. [Applause]

“Years ago, Shelby County accepted about 400 or so refugees a year that is now down to about three dozen refugees. The United States of America with this heritage of being a beacon of hope around the globe right now. We have around 1% of the world’s refugees in the United States of America, I think we can do a lot better on that score as well. So these are the issues that I’ve talked about, since I’ve been in elected office. They’re not issues that win you a lot of, you know, big business donors per se, but they are issues that matter nonetheless. And so I’ll continue to drive these kinds of conversations for as long as I’m in office.”

Maya Smith

MICAH members gather to support $20 transit fee

Members of the Memphis Interfaith Coalition for Action and Hope (MICAH) gathered near city hall on Tuesday to show support for a Shelby County Commission resolution that would create a county transit fee to generate funds for the Memphis Area Transit Authority (MATA).

The resolution, sponsored by Shelby County Commissioners Willie Brooks Jr., Tami Sawyer, and Van Turner Jr., is an alternative to Shelby County Mayor Lee Harris’ plan to implement an annual fee of $145 for a households’ third vehicle. That plan, which would generate $10 million in funding for MATA each year, was first introduced by the mayor in September.

The proposed resolution seeks instead to increase the countywide motor vehicle tax, also known as the wheel tax, by $20 for every vehicle owner. The wheel tax was first established in 1987 and was dedicated to repaying the county’s bonded indebtedness. Then, in 2016, the county adopted a resolution mandating that 100 percent of wheel tax revenue be allocated to school operations.

Now, the commissioners seek to increase the wheel tax by $20 for every registered vehicle in the county and use the additional revenue — limited to $9 million annually — to fund MATA. Currently, the tax for a private vehicle is $50. It’s $20 for motorcycles, scooters, and ATVs, $80 for commercial vehicles, and $25 for nonprofit vehicles.

Brittany Thornton, co-chair of MICAH’s economic task force, said this resolution is a reasonable compromise between the mayor’s proposal and MICAH’s suggestion of a $20 to $50 fee on all vehicles. Based on a survey of 225 Memphians, Thornton said MICAH leaders believe that a fee of $20 to $50 is more favorable to citizens than Harris’ proposed $145 on third vehicles. Still, Thornton said MICAH applauds Harris “for even taking on transit.”

“This conversation on transit has been around for a long time and under other administrations, we haven’t even gotten this far,” Thornton said. “So to have a mayor that’s willing to keep the conversation at the forefront of what we’re focused on, we applaud that. We appreciate that. But we want to get the figures that are actually going to set MATA up to do what it needs to do.”

Improving transit plays a huge role in MICAH’s commitment to economic equity, Thornton said, which requires “we work to dismantle the systemic barriers that keep our neighbors from thriving.

“Whether it is being able to get to education and training, arriving on time for a job or an appointment, filling the many third shift job opening that currently MATA hours does not allow, exposing tourists to more of Memphis and all of Shelby County, or reducing the amount of pollution and road wear and tear, Memphis and the metropolitan area’s potential to thrive must include a high-performing transit system.”

Ultimately, Thornton said “sufficiently funding MATA” must be one of the top priorities of local government in order for “any kind of equity to be achieved” in Shelby County.

The resolution stipulates that the allocation of the funds to MATA are contingent on four factors. First, the commission is asking that two members appointed by the Shelby County mayor and approved by the county commission are added to the MATA Board of Commissioners.

Another factor is that MATA creates bus routes that connect to the county’s largest employers. The resolution’s sponsors are specifically seeking a new bus route to the FedEx World Hub.

Additionally, the resolution calls for MATA to reduce the scheduled commute time to the Raleigh and Frayser communities by 50 percent, because economic and job development are underway in the area. Finally, the commissioners are asking that these terms be formally agreed upon in a memorandum of understanding between MATA and Shelby County.

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If approved, the $20 wheel tax increase would go into effect on July 1, 2020. The commission is slated to discuss the resolution Wednesday at 9 a.m. during its General Government committee meeting ahead of its vote on Monday.

Ahead of this discussion, Harris will make a presentation to the committee in support of his plan, explaining the potential economic benefits of investing an additional $10 million in transit each year. There are 16,000 unfilled jobs in Shelby County, according to state data, and Harris contends that improving transit would help fill these jobs.

The mayor also said that an investment of $10 million would have an economic impact of more than $40 million because of expanded job access.

“We currently have over 16,000 jobs available in Memphis, most of which do not require any type of specialized skill,” Harris said in a Tuesday press release. “A large reason for so many open jobs is that too many individuals in our community do not have transportation that they can rely on to get to a job and keep a job. Our residents should be able to get to a job, keep a job, and able to get home from that job in time to have dinner with their family.”

The economy is just one of the “Three E’s” Harris has assured that the $10 million investment would address. In November the mayor told the commission about the environmental benefits the $10 million would lend, such as reducing emissions by the thousands of metric tons. In December, Harris, joined by University of Memphis associate professor Elena Delavega, made the case for public transportation’s role in addressing poverty and equity.

Harris’ administration hopes that the commission will vote on the plan by the end of next month.