STARTUPS South Tampa Bay Area Transportation Partnerships
"A Unified Voice
Advancing Transportation"
"Transportation is
America's Life-line"
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
REFLECTING OUR 2007 ACCOMPLISHMENTS
To Our Members:
We want you to know that we appreciate your membership and we want you to
know that your continued involvement in STARTUPS is key to our success.
We want to convey to our members that you or someone from your organization
needs to communicate to us your key projects so we can work with you to
successfully achieve your goal. I encourage all members to be more engaged
in our organization. Together we can make a difference.
This past year we sent a letter to Congressman Vern Buchanan regarding
federal earmarks for transportation.
As you will recall, STARTUPS met with Manatee and Sarasota Counties and the MPO
at our February 2007 meeting prior to voting on our recommendations to make sure
that we were all inclusive.
One of our key successes last year was convincing the Manatee County
Commission to pass it's full local option gas tax. I met individually with
every Manatee Commissioner. This effort will generate millions of dollars
for Manatee County. Manatee County has already started using these funds to
advance projects.
Many of our efforts may seem transparent, but if we are successful in
getting an increase on the Skyway tolls, indexing the local option gas tax
to the CPI and the rental car surtax, this will also generate millions for
our area and the entire state of Florida. We will continue to work on these
efforts over the next year.
We were successful in convincing the FDOT District I Office to get the
Turnpike Enterprise to study the possibility of putting HOT (toll) lanes on
I-75 from Charlotte County to Pasco County (where I-75 ties into
I-275.) If we continue to champion this effort we could have HOT lanes
on I-75 from Collier County to Pasco County. This has been a major
undertaking and will continue to be a key focus for STARTUPS.
We were successful in getting University Parkway added to the emerging SIS
and getting Manatee County, Sarasota County, Sarasota-Bradenton Airport and
the FDOT to join together to fund the improvements to the University
Parkway/US 301 intersection improvements.
We are continuing our work with the Sebring Airport folks to make the
east/west, Heartland Coast to Coast corridor a reality.
We are also have ongoing talks with Sarasota County's administration to
encourage Sarasota County to start advance reimbursing transportation
improvement projects. Manatee County has had great success doing this and we
continue to encourage them. Now it is time for Sarasota County to get on
board.
We continue to work closely with our friends at Floridians for Better
Transportation to help us with our statewide transportation funding efforts.
We were successful in getting two of our Executive Committee members (Fred
Derr and Neil Sprites) appointed to the Citizen's Advisory Committee (CAC)
for the Tampa Bay Area Regional Transportation Authority (TBARTA) and have
worked very hard to ensure that the Sarasota/Manatee area is well
represented on the TBARTA board. We will continue our work on that
effort to the benefit transportation in the Sarasota/Manatee area.
We are having talks with Sarasota and Manatee County staffers (through our
active membership on both Chamber's [Sarasota and Manatee] transportation
committees) to provide input for reduction of the bureaucratic process so we
can implement projects in a faster, cheaper and more efficient manner.
Our monthly Executive Committee meetings with FDOT Secretary Stan Cann
have been exceptionally successful. We are provided the opportunity to sit
down in a casual, relaxed atmosphere and talk one-on-one. Through this
venue, we were able to have Secretary Stephanie Kopelousos attend on of our
recent meetings.
These are only a few of our successes. There are more to come.
As my dad used to say, federal, state and county government are
rough rows to hoe (I'm not sure what that means.) But I think it means that it
is always an uphill battle.
With the current economic situation it is hard to keep our
members on board. Money is tight and O knoe that our members want to see a
return for their investments.
I want all of you to know that your membership dollars are spent
in your best interest.
Michael Guy, Executive Director
For More Information Contact:
South Tampa Bay Area Transportation Partnerships
PO Box 155, Bradenton, FL 34206
Tel: 941-555-1212
FAX: 941-555-1212
Internet: Info@TransportationSTARTUPS.com
