Mass Transit

Dear All,

Monday night the full Council is scheduled to vote on the Mass Transit proposal that was on the ballot in November as a referendum.  Please do take the time to read through this entire email before then.  The digest of this proposal is:

Digest:  imposes an additional local income tax rate for a public transportation project as authorized by the voters’ approval of a local public question on November 8, 2016.

While I still have many reservations about this proposal, I also have always felt it is my responsibility to represent you – the voters in my district, and not my personal choice.  Last year when the Council was to vote on whether or not this was to be on the ballot as a referendum, I did a survey – and the majority of you said you did not want it on the ballot (and many of you who said you did want it on the ballot said you wanted it on so you could vote against the tax increase).  I listened to you then, and that was the way I voted.  However, there were more Councillors who voted for it to be a referendum, and so in November you all had the opportunity to let your voice be heard and vote either for or against the proposal.

Before the vote, I tried to keep my comments neutral, but did try to make sure that you had some information about this.  I sent out information about meetings on this topic that took place in March, July, and October.  In addition to these other meetings, I had my Town Hall Meeting just before the election on this topic in which the pros and cons were presented.  Again, I tried to keep my comments on a neutral track, but pointed out the facts about the plan.

I would like to explain my own personal position on this topic.  While I do think that there needs to be a lot of improvements in the bus system (frequency during times of day when people would be going to and from work, a grid system where you do not have to go downtown to get places, expanded service to the under-served areas of town, especially on the west side outside I – 465 and areas of either high density housing or high employment areas, increase in the open-door service as our population ages, better bus shelters that are protected from the elements and well lit, and many more sidewalks so that people can walk to and from bus stops safely to their homes, shopping, or places they work), I don’t feel this proposal will address the improvements that need to be made for those of us on our side of town.  I think that there could be a lot of improvements made (and those should have been in the works) with our current budget.  Most importantly, I do not feel that this is the time to ask for a 0.25% tax increase to the voters of Marion County when we are all experiencing utility increases and the cost of so many of our day to day living expenses going up, and salaries are not rising to meet the other increases.  Not only that, I am not sure that this will be the last time in the next few years that you will not be asked to pay more in taxes for other things.

Many of you have contacted me about the increase in taxes, and you simply do not feel you can afford this.  It is been made to sound like it is not much – but to a family who is just making it from pay check to pay check now – this addition $25 per $10,000 that they make is a huge dent.  The young family who is purchasing their first home – this money can make a difference.  Or how about the family who is trying to save for their children’s college – this makes an impact.  I have also heard from a lot of you who are retired or approaching retirement age, and any additional taxes on what you do have as income hits hard.  And like I said before – other things are rising as well, things like utilities that we have no control over.

There was a huge push to pass this, and there has continued to be a huge push to pass it.  Last week in one two hour period of time I had 22 voice messages that were calls generated by a group who is pushing for this to pass.  This went on all week.  The group that was doing this would call people and asked if they could connect them to me and then tell me to support the proposal.  I know that many did not leave messages when getting the voice mail (even though they were told to do so), and a lot of people got cut off somehow even when I would answer.  I also know that if they said they did not support the tax increase, they did not connect them – as I heard about that as well.

There has been a huge push at every Council Meeting of folks attending and standing outside the meeting room before the Council in t-shirts and with signs.  There is another push for this again tomorrow night.

That being said, I want everyone also to know how the voters in our district voted.  Voters in our district voted “Yes” on the referendum – 57.8% to 42.2%.  District 6 is made up of 27 precincts.  Of those 27 precincts, 25 of them voted “yes”.  The two that did not, one was in Clermont and one was in Speedway (Wayne 1 and Wayne 10).  I have the precincts and vote totals shown below:

 While I know that this email is quite long, and there is a lot information in it, I wanted to make sure you were aware of a lot of things before Monday night’s vote on the Mass Transit Proposal.  I have also attached maps that show our district enlarged with the current transportation routes (2016) and the proposed transportation routes (2021) as well as the entire county for now and the future.  Please do study them.

No matter what the outcome of the full Council is on Monday, do know that I will continue to advocate for our district and the far west side of Indianapolis for increase in service by the buses.  Each and every day I try to do my best to represent the voters in my district.  While we may not always agree, I do listen and work hard for all of you and will always do so.

Sincerely,

Janice McHenry
City-County Councillor District 6