While pro-Penny supporters celebrated the victory, Penny critics lamented the referendum's passage.
By REBECCA CATALANELLO and BRIDGET HALL GRUMET
Published March 10, 2004
Jennifer Seney stepped to the microphone and smiled. Almost 95 percent of the precincts were reporting, and she was ready to break out the margaritas.
"We are winning at 51.86 percent!" the leader of the pro-Penny Preserve Pasco! said to a burst of cheers and laughter Tuesday night.
After months of work, these pro-Penny for Pasco leaders were thirsty for the victory. But after enduring the sting of a Pasco school sales tax defeat in 1995, the movers and shakers at the Wilderness Lake Preserve lodge in Land O'Lakes still were hesitant to claim victory with 5 percent of the precincts out.
A few minutes later, with 97 percent reporting, the big screen television showed, the yeses had 52 percent. The Penny for Pasco, a 1-cent-on-the-dollar sales tax increase to build and expand schools, improve roads, buy conservation land and pay for city projects, was going to pass.
"Fantastic! We're going to be able to take care of the needs of this county," Pasco County school district chief financial officer Chuck Rushe said, a broad smile across his face.
Miles away from the party, the phone rang at Bill Bunting's Beacon Woods home with the news. To sales tax opponent Bunting, it was a narrow victory tainted by bad timing and special interest dollars.
"If it had been in November, it would have been an entirely different decision," Bunting said. "There's no doubt in my mind."
He also pointed to the dramatic fundraising disparity: The two groups promoting the sales tax had an 86-to-1 fundraising advantage over the Citizens Against the Penny for Pasco, a group headed by Bunting's wife, Ann.
"The special interests won the election," Bill Bunting said.
But the proponents credit their tireless army of volunteers for the squeaker victory.
Parent volunteer Brian McKeefrey of Wesley Chapel exhaled: "We're pulling it off - not by a lot. I just keep thinking it's the extra 3 absentee ballots I brought over today."
Added Rushe: "I think we'll savor the moment and put the plans in place to show the voters that the money is going to be spent the way it should be spent. We need to do a good job with those proceeds."
A tax tradeoff
The measure approved by voters will raise the sales tax in Pasco County from 6 to 7 cents on the dollar, starting Jan. 1.
Over the 10-year-life of the extra sales tax, that penny will add up to an estimated $437-million.
To make the higher sales tax more palatable to voters, school officials promised to cut their property tax for school construction by a half-mill for 10 years. That translates into 50-cents of savings for every $1,000 of taxable property.
But the tax swap sent a mixed message to voters like Frank Bastecki.
"There's so much waste in our government," the Beacon Woods retiree said after voting against the sales tax increase Tuesday morning. "If they're going to lower (property) taxes, why do they need the penny?"
About $118-million of the sales tax revenue will be used to reimburse the School Board for the lost property tax dollars. That leaves about $319-million to split among the county (45 percent), the school district (45 percent) and the cities (10 percent).
Voters like Vicki Prickett said the extra dollars are desperately needed by the school district, which will use its share of the sales tax to build nine schools and renovate 10 others.
"Look around at all the houses going up in the neighborhood, you can see there's a need for more schools," said Prickett, a mother of two who has lived in Land O'Lakes for three years. She voted Tuesday morning after dropping off her son at Denham Oaks Elementary.
Miriam Paolella drove up to her Wesley Chapel precinct in a car bearing a Sand Pine Elementary School vanity plate. Her two grandchildren attend school amid the portables, and her daughter volunteers there.
"I always vote for anything that helps children," said Paolella, a Costa Rica emigrant.
But other voters weren't convinced the extra sales tax would do that.
"There's no guarantee the problems will be solved by the penny," said Tim Merritt, a Land O'Lakes resident who said impact fees and the growing tax base should provide enough revenue. "If a penny would do it, I would vote for 10 pennies. But the county didn't build its case very well."
The ayes have it
Clearly the fate of the Penny hinged on the turnout.
The Democratic presidential nomination is a foregone conclusion. Republicans and independent voters had nothing else on the ballot. So, the election became a pure measure of which voters felt strong enough about the sales tax to show up at the polls.
Both parties had a decent showing: About 34.78 percent of Democrats and 28.80 percent of Republicans cast ballots Tuesday. So did 18.46 percent of the third party voters.
The turnout was steady at the Lavilla Gardens Civic Center in Holiday, where mother-daughter team Valerie Anderson, 40, and Christina Stevens, 20, bickered on the way out of the tiny polling place.
"She does not understand," said Anderson, who voted in favor of the tax. "We need new schools... If we don't build new schools, we're going to end up with a bunch of little mobile homes out behind these schools."
Stevens just did not agree. She voted "no," saying she wasn't convinced the money would go where it should.
"So, you're saying you don't trust government," the mother said.
"Yeah," the daughter replied with a laugh before looking at a newspaper reporter. "Well, don't write that down - but yeah."
"We see it'
Trust was a key issue for many voters. Did officials really need the money? Would they spend it as promised? Would the tax go away in 10 years, as officials said?
"I call it the Penny for Politicians," Beacon Woods retiree Jim Barker said. "If you give the money to the politicians, they know how to spend it."
At the voting precinct at Gulf High School, poll volunteer Paul Sobek - an 82-year-old Democrat and Port Richey resident - said he wasn't convinced the need for an extra penny tax was real.
"I've been paying taxes for education for 20 years," he said, his kelly green volunteer hat perched atop his head. Though Sobek said his daughter had tried to get him to support the measure, he was unmoved.
"I know these politicians," he said, "they're gimme, gimme, gimme, and I bet you dollars to donuts there's going to be raises for these politicians."
Audrey Simon was concerned that the county could change its list of road projects, which include a revamped interchange at Interstate 75 and State Road/County Road 54 and channelized medians on U.S. 19. But the need for school funding won her vote.
"It's going to help the kids in school," said Simon, a Kmart manager who lives in Beacon Woods. "A penny - most people throw it away."
John and Wilma Eshenour, who moved to Zephyrhills in August, supported the Penny.
"They won't get done if you don't help support them," Wilma Eshenour, 76, said.
Over in New Port Richey, stay-at-home mothers Becky Mitchell and Celia Cantwell raised their "Yes campaign signs high while traffic passed at State Road 54 and Madison Avenue.
People honked. Some gave thumbs up. Some gave thumbs down.
"I know the needs of the schools," Mitchell said, a visor and sunglasses shading her against the bright, crisp sunny afternoon. "We're in them, we see it. We all do."
- Staff writers Stephen Hegarty, Lisa Buie and Molly Moorhead contributed to this report.
