Friday, Oct. 11, 2002 | 9:20 a.m.
The Regional Transportation Commission on Thursday received perhaps its most important endorsement for the $2.7 billion tax question on the November ballot.
The endorsement came from the group that first said the money was needed more than a year ago. The RTC's community coalition, dubbed RTC-3, identified what it called a crisis of traffic and transit needs for Southern Nevada, and also proposed a funding solution to ease the problem.
But the funding solution proposed by RTC-3 was not what passed the full RTC board and the various local governments, including the Clark County Commission and the Las Vegas City Council. Instead, the proposal that county voters will consider next month relies much more heavily on a sales tax increase to generate more than $2 billion of the total.
The RTC-3's original proposal relied more on gasoline taxes for about $750,000 of the total. The gas tax increase has been stripped from the proposal, Question 10 on the ballot.
The lack of endorsement by the community coalition is a central argument used by opponents of the tax initiative, an advisory measure that the Legislature still must OK.
"There were a couple of modifications," said Bruce Woodbury, who serves as chairman of the community coalition, chairman of the RTC board and county commissioner. "I guess nobody thought about it that much at the time, but the people who oppose Question 10 thought about it."
RTC General Manager Jacob Snow said the RTC modified the community coalition's proposal because of community feedback and regulatory reality. Surveys showed Clark County's voters were strongly opposed to the gas tax increase, which would have made the local tax among the highest in the nation.
"They showed much stronger support for a sales tax," Snow said.
Another funding source on the original proposal, to change the charge and number of smog checks required for car owners, was ditched because it would have to go through a regulatory maze with the federal Environmental Protection Agency, Snow said.
Woodbury said the revised funding formula will cost each Clark County resident about $1.25 a month. Woodbury, Snow and other supporters say that without the funding, the region will become mired in Los Angeles-style traffic jams.
About 25 members of the community coalition, meeting for the first time since last February, voted to support the revised funding formula without a single "no" vote.
The coalition members included developers, labor leaders, government officials and nonprofit groups as diverse at the Nevada Taxpayers Association and the local arm of the Sierra Club.
However, not everyone supported the endorsement. Kenneth Williams, a retired Los Angeles-area attorney, was one of three people to write arguments against the initiative for the sample ballot. In the argument, the opponents focused on the lack -- until now -- of a community coalition endorsement.
The endorsement Thursday comes too late, Williams said.
"This is an immature, improper and unfortunate way to present it to the voters," he said. "It is the only way I presume you can cover your face and present it to the voters."
But Woodbury and other coalition members said they always had room to modify the original proposals without bringing the issues back to the full coalition.
"I don't think there was ever the intention to misrepresent the support of this committee," Woodbury said.
Snow said the tax initiative is essential to accelerate construction of the Las Vegas Beltway and expand the region's mass transit options.
The beltway, with the new funding, can be built to interstate highway standards by 2010, Snow said.
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