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Published Monday, September 15, 2008 in Local

Seabaugh clarifies position on gas tax proposal

By Jeff Bishop

The Times-Herald

After a flurry of telephone calls to his office, State Senator Mitch Seabaugh (R-Sharpsburg) said Monday he needed to clarify his position regarding a proposed transportation tax.

"I am getting questions about the article" about a Friday morning meeting at the Newnan-Coweta Chamber of Commerce, reported in the Monday edition of The Times-Herald, called "Seabaugh floats penny gas tax idea."

"However, the entire concept of what was being discussed was not clearly stated in the article," said Seabaugh.

"That has left people confused regarding my position on tax increases," Seabaugh said. "I am not floating a tax increase," he said. "I have tried to come up with an idea to allow a compromise on a transportation SPLOST. Very different.

"A SPLOST (special purpose local option sales tax) is voted on by the voters for approval, a tax increase by the legislature," he said.

The conversation Friday was with members of the local chamber, the Atlanta Metro Chamber and the Georgia Chamber, he said.

"These are organizations that are pressuring to have additional tax money for road projects," he said.

This past session, Seabaugh said, there was an effort to pass a transportation SPLOST, similar to the other SPLOSTs utilized by counties and school boards. "The transportation SPLOST would raise money for projects (roads, maybe rail, etc.)," he said. "However, the plan from last session would establish regions and the regions would detail the projects and then vote on them. If the region passed it, then the tax would be assessed -- regardless of how any one county voted.

"So, Coweta could be in a region with Cobb, Fulton, DeKalb and Gwinnett and could be out-voted by those larger counties," he said. "Those counties want very much to take a transportation SPLOST to the voters."

Seabaugh said he voted against the bill because he "felt Coweta County residents could be at a tremendous disadvantage. We could be put in a district where we could be overwhelmed by votes from other counties," he said.

The push for a transportation SPLOST is "still very big and very real," Seabaugh said.

"The populations in Cobb, Fulton, DeKalb and Gwinnett want it, and the respective chambers of commerce want it badly also," he said. "It is an issue that will not go away."

So, in trying to find a solution that would protect Coweta County citizens, Seabaugh said, "I came up with the idea of a transportation SPLOST, voted by and approved by the voters of a county only.

"That way we in Coweta County would have entire control over whether we wanted a transportation tax or not," he said.

"There could only be a penny sales tax assessed with half of the cent totally dedicated to projects in that county," he said. "The other half penny could be used (totally at the discretion of the county voters) for common road projects with other counties."

This would allow counties who want the tax the flexibility of using their funds for local projects or shared projects, he said.

"But participation would have to be based on agreement of the voters of each county," said Seabaugh.

"While I am opposed to tax increases, I believe the principle of local control would dictate that local governments be able to have tools to address their needs.

"The idea I floated was to allow a possible compromise that would allow those counties the ability to tax themselves if they so choose, while enabling counties that did not want to tax themselves the protection from being out voted by larger counties.

"I hope this sheds some light on the whole story," he said.