TAMPA, Fla. — The Hillsborough County transportation surtax referendum is back on the ballot hours after it was to be removed.
On Friday, a court issued a stay of the order removing the county's transportation surtax referendum from the November ballot that went into effect Thursday night.
The stay remains in effect until further court action. This means that a notice posted to voters will be temporarily discarded — it had been posted online, placed in privacy booths at voting locations and in outgoing vote-by-mail ballots informing voters that votes cast either for or against the transportation measure will not count.
"We received the attached order from the appellate court, and therefore have removed the Notices to the Voter posted earlier today," the county supervisor of elections office said in a statement.
According to an earlier written order, the judicial court for Hillsborough County said the removal of the proposal came down to the measure not complying with the law.
"When Hillsborough County asks voters for more money, the law requires that it say what it means and mean what it says," the order said. "The law also requires that the County comply with the rules the Legislature has given about how the ballot question may be posed.
"On the ballot in Hillsborough County is a measure that does not mean what it says. It does not say what it means. It does not comply with the law, as it is required to do. Because it does not, the measure must be stricken from the ballot."
The 1% transportation tax referendum would've approved the raising of sales tax in Hillsborough County from 7.5% to 8.5% and allowed transportation officials to have the funds to make roads safer by adding bike lanes, lights and paving roads.
Something very similar was passed in 2018. Around half a billion tax dollars were collected. That referendum was ruled unconstitutional because voters decided how the money was spent.
However, supporters of the new transportation tax said that this time is different because county commissioners decided to put it on the November ballot.
On Oct. 10, All for Transportation Co-Founder Tyler Hudson expressed his disappointment with the court's decision and said it will bring more problems for people within the county.
"The only losers are the residents of Hillsborough County who have again had their opportunity to fix our broken transportation system delayed," he said in a statement. "We will continue to pay the high price of doing nothing and the call for action will only grow louder."