County opts out of transit district
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Commission votes 3-2 to withdraw, form new alliance with city of Santa Fe
7/7/2008 - 7/8/08
Santa Fe County on Monday pulled out of the North Central Regional Transit District. Residents nonetheless can expect to be asked soon to approve a one-eighth-cent gross-receipts tax increase to help pay for expanding public transportation.Despite urgings from New Mexico Department of Transportation Secretary Rhonda Faught and state House Speaker Ben Luján, D-Nambé, to remain part of a four-county transit district, the Santa Fe County Commission voted 3-2 to withdraw and form a separate alliance with the city of Santa Fe.
"We've got some real opportunities now to be the managers of our own destiny," County Commissioner Jack Sullivan said.
Commissioner Mike Anaya — who chairs the regional transit district board and was joined only by Commissioner Virginia Vigil in voting to remain part of the district — saw things differently.
"I think it's a sad day in Northern New Mexico for transportation," Anaya said. "All along, everyone has been talking about regionalization. It's easier for the Legislature and for the federal government to give money to anything that is regional. Now Santa Fe County is going to duplicate what is already taking place."
Sullivan, who spearheaded the movement to withdraw, has been critical of the district's ability to meet Santa Fe County's transportation needs in a fiscally efficient manner. He said the county will get more for its money by partnering with the city of Santa Fe on a new transit district over which there will be more local control.
Monday's vote was an eleventh-hour decision that came only hours before a deadline that would have required Santa Fe County to join Taos, Los Alamos and Rio Arriba counties in asking voters to pony up a one-eighth percent tax to fund expansion of regional bus service.
The decision — a rare, acrimonious split on the commission — came after three months of wrangling in which transit district officials tried to come up with an agreement that would keep Santa Fe in the district. Santa Fe County was expected to be a major source of tax revenue for the regional program.
In 10 meetings over the course of three months, the transit district lowered the amount of the proposed tax from three-sixteenths percent to one-eighth percent; convinced the state Department of Transportation to commit to $7 million for the Rail Runner Express commuter train; and agreed that half the money raised within Santa Fe County from the one-eighth-cent levy would go toward funding the new rail service between Santa Fe and metropolitan Albuquerque.
The last measure was an effort to address Sullivan's concerns that Santa Fe County residents could end up being double-taxed (once for buses and once for trains) if the state mandated a separate transit district for the train.
The one point that the regional transit district refused to give in on, however, was control over how the rest of the transportation tax money generated in Santa Fe County would be spent.
Santa Fe County had proposed an 86 percent-14 percent split, with Santa Fe County and the city of Santa Fe sharing control over 86 percent of the revenues not earmarked for the Rail Runner.
The transit district's offer of a 50-50 split wasn't well received by Sullivan, who said that would result in a scenario in which Santa Fe County taxpayers would be subsidizing services in the three other counties. According to figures released Monday by Santa Fe County, the 50-50 split would have resulted in county residents paying $4.6 million per year for $3.3 million worth of transit services.
"It's one thing to couch it in these nice terms like 'regional transit,' " Sullivan said. "But it's our duty to look and see if we are taxing our residents to pay for services in another county. The whole theory is that Santa Fe County is the big guy in town so we should provide our tax dollars to other municipalities and counties, and that's not the way county government works."
Montoya said he still supports regional transportation. He said he supports a tax of one-eighth of a cent on the dollar to pay for it and still wants the county to enter into a joint powers agreement with Bernalillo, Valencia and Sandoval counties to share the cost of operating the Rail Runner, which the state hopes to get under way by the end of this year.
Faught, who argued against the county's withdrawal on Monday, said she did so because she believes in regional cooperation and because she wants to see the Rail Runner funded.
Faught said the Department of Transportation is still willing to work with whatever new transit district Santa Fe County and the city of Santa Fe form. She said it will be difficult, "though not impossible," to create the new district and the required agreements in time to put a one-eighth-cent tax proposal on the ballot for November's general election.
The city of Santa Fe, a nonvoting member of the regional transit district, passed a resolution June 30 resolving to withdraw from the district if Santa Fe County did so. The city confirmed that intention in a news release issued after Monday's County Commission vote.
City Councilor Rebecca Wurzburger huddled with Faught immediately after Monday's vote to discuss how the formation of the new city/county transit district could be expedited. Wurzburger and Sullivan have proposed the joint city/county Regional Planning Authority as the logical entity to take over administration of the new transit district.
In the short term, regional transit district Director Josette Lucero said, the county's withdrawal will mean the end of bus service between Eldorado and Santa Fe. Lucero said she planned to give the contractor for that route a 30-day cancellation notice Monday.
Sullivan said he's not sure if the contract between Santa Fe County and the regional transit district will allow that. If the district does cancel that service, Sullivan said, Santa Fe County has enough cash reserves to foot the $240,000 bill for the service until money from the proposed one-eighth-cent tax comes in next summer.
Contact Phaedra Haywood at 986-3068 or phaywood@sfnewmexican.com.