As we know, Mayor Bob Buckhorn is adamant about moving this city and this area into the mass-transit future. He’s supporting the Greenlight Pinellas effort, and we know that he would like to gear up for the next Hillsborough transit referendum in 2016–not 2018, as HART chairman Mike Suarez has advocated.
Mayor Bob is also adamant about something else.
He won’t be making any more treks to Tallahassee to try long-shot lobbying on behalf of city-only referenda. In the past, he has tried to at least start the conversation about cities of a certain size–Tampa, Jacksonville, Miami, Orlando and St. Petersburg–having their own referenda and not being canceled out by outlying areas with different agendas–and politics.
Not worth the effort this time.
“No way,” says Buckhorn. “It won’t happen. Not with this Legislature.”