Legislature ponders new tax plans to fix Tucson-area roads

Arizona Daily Star
Murphy Woodhouse
http://tucson.com/news/local/legislature-ponders-new-tax-plans-to-fix-t…

As this column has explored several times, any Pima County Board of Supervisors-approved sales tax would have to clear a high bar — a unanimous 5-0 vote.

That’s a tall order given the strong opposition of Supervisor Ally Miller, who argues the county already has enough resources to address crumbling roads but is squandering them on nonessential projects, and the skepticism of Supervisor Richard Elías, who is uncomfortable with the regressive nature of sales taxes.

However, bills working their way through the Legislature would open a path to a county half-cent sales tax for road repair and maintenance with a simple majority vote of the board.

As written, the legislation — SB 1147 in the Senate and HB 2165 in the House — simply allow county boards in the state to refer such a measure to the voters, who would have the ultimate say.

More here http://tucson.com/news/local/legislature-ponders-new-tax-plans-to-fix-t…