Ex-linebacker an odd choice at transit
By A TIMES EDITORIAL
Published September 25, 2007
Time will tell what former Tampa Bay Buccaneers linebacker Shelton Quarles will bring to the chairmanship of a new regional transportation initiative. Getting seven counties and their municipalities on Florida's West Coast to unite behind a new and expensive transportation system is enough of a challenge for someone versed in policy and experienced at working in the public arena bridging competing agendas and egos. Quarles lacks that experience. He will need to give the job the attention it deserves, be accessible and sell a doable plan to the voters.
Lawmakers created the Tampa Bay Area Regional Transportation Authority this year after the business community pushed for an overarching umbrella group to design a better transportation system. The message was clear: A region whose population of 4-million could double in 40 years needed something better than local agencies and the state Department of Transportation to manage the congestion. The agency has two years to write a master plan for new roads and mass transit and find ways to fund them. Its governing board, made up mostly of local elected officials, faces a host of complex and delicate tradeoffs, from what to build and where and what role mass transit should play to whether the region should tax itself to build commuter rail.
These decisions will shape the look and economy of the region for decades. The board chair needs to have a vision, a sense for balancing urban and rural needs and an ability to sell the wisdom of investing in new infrastructure to voters in cities with starkly different characters at a time the public is clamoring for government to reduce, not increase, taxes and spending.
Gov. Charlie Crist was said to be impressed with Quarles' leadership ability and sense of teamwork. We share Crist's hopes, but the governor has not instilled confidence so far that he grasps the seriousness of the agency's mission. He vetoed start-up money for the agency, thereby making it more reliant on the DOT, the very people local leaders were trying to marginalize. Crist was late making appointments, and some of the ones he did make were weak. Crist's office has made no effort to explain why it chose Quarles, and Quarles, who works as Bucs scout, has to be reached through the team's press office. That's an unacceptable wall between him and his public obligations.
The regional authority is still the best vehicle Tampa Bay has for designing a transportation system to move people and goods from Citrus to Sarasota counties. Ultimately what matters is not personalities but the plan the authority will take to the voters, likely in 2010. Sports figures have made valuable contributions, off the playing field, in this community. Quarles was an odd pick, but he deserves a chance show that he is up to the job.