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Money to spend, but roads still wait

A Hillsborough task force finds difficulty in buying land hurts new road projects.

By BILL VARIAN
Published April 5, 2007

TAMPA - A task force studying ways to improve Hillsborough's transportation network have come to one unavoidable conclusion: The county already has considerable money to put to the task but can't spend it fast enough.

Hillsborough County Commissioner Ken Hagan, who is leading the task force, won permission to pay a consultant up to $150,000, plus $15,000 in expenses, to figure out how to uncork the spending bottleneck.

Commissioners voted 6-0 to approve the expenditure, with Chairman Jim Norman absent.

Hagan said the task force has concluded that the slow pace of spending is at least partially caused by the difficulty in buying land for new road lanes. Purchases often get bogged down in court, where land owners challenge the county's right to their property or the price offered.

So, at Hagan's request, commissioners in two weeks also will consider hiring four new employees devoted to acquiring property. The potential cost for those employees: About $400,000 annually.

Hagan, emphasizing that he considers himself a fiscal conservative, said he nevertheless believes the cost is worth speeding up the spending.

"Our transportation projects take too long to construct," Hagan said. "We cannot continue to operate in the same manner."

Commissioners Brian Blair and Rose Ferlita said they want to hear more about what the new workers will do before committing to hiring them.

As a St. Petersburg Times story documented earlier this year, Hillsborough County has nearly $500-million it could spend on transportation almost immediately. But the county has not managed to surpass $50-million in annual spending for new transportation projects in any of the past three years.

One of the main reasons: Land acquisition. County Attorney Renee Lee said the county is currently in litigation over 173 separate parcels of land. "This is just a drop in the bucket compared to the need," Lee said of hiring an additional attorney.

Under the proposal, Lee likely would add one lawyer and a support worker to a staff of two attorneys devoted to government acquisition of land under eminent domain laws.

Hagan said he likely will ask commissioners to dedicate additional property tax money toward transportation projects during this budget year, possibly as much as $10-million. The county already spends about $25-million in property taxes toward new transportation projects annually on top of money it gets from the half-cent sales tax known as the Community Investment Tax.

Bill Varian can be reached at 813 226-3387 or varian@sptimes.com.

[Last modified April 5, 2007, 06:46:12]