JimmyCsays: At the juncture of journalism and daily life in KC

Alliances can develop very quickly in politics.

Such is the case with me and Tom and Debra Shrout, St. Louis residents who head a campaign committee that is working against Amendment 7 on the Aug. 5 ballot. Until last Sunday, I didn’t who they were or what they were doing. But now we’re working closely, at a distance of 250 miles, to defeat Amendment 7.

Amendment 7 is the turd that the Missouri General Assembly and the “concrete cartel,” as Tom Shrout calls it, pushed onto the ballot in an effort to shift a significant part of transportation funding from dedicated revenue streams to a statewide general sales tax.

Before I introduce Tom and Debra, I want to tell you a little more about Amendment 30.

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Section 30 of the Missouri Constitution states clearly that transportation projects are to be paid for with gas taxes, sales taxes on vehicle purchases, and vehicle license fees.

The idea — entirely logical — is for vehicle-related revenue streams to pay for transportation projects.

But the proponents of Amendment 7 want to flip logic onto its head. They want to change the constitution to impose a general 3/4 cent sales tax that all Missouri residents would pay, regardless of how much they use the roads. The proponents would increase the most regressive of all taxes — the one that hits hardest those least able to afford it.

And guess what? The truckers and trucking companies, which put the most wear and tear on state roads and highways, would get a pass.

That’s what I mean about trying to shift the burden…As was the case with Jackson County’s 2013 proposed sales-tax increase for medical research, the proponents of Amendment 7 want everyone else to buy the paint for their pretty picture.

We can’t let them get away with it!

The state Constitution offers a clear avenue for raising new transportation revenue: raising the state’s gas tax.

That tax has stood at 17 cents a gallon – sixth lowest in the nation as of last year — since 1996, or almost 20 years. If the Missouri General Assembly and the “concrete cartel” (essentially, the heavy constructors, the engineering companies and the materials suppliers) want to raise more money for transportation needs, they should come back to us with a proposal to raise the gas tax.

That’s the appropriate way to go. That’s the fair way to go.

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Back to Tom and Debra. Their committee is called Missourians for Better Transportation Solutions. (In terms of creativity and clarity, that doesn’t hold a candle to my 2013 Committee to Stop a Bad Cure. Fortunately, victory or defeat probably won’t come down to the committee name.)

They have strong backgrounds in transit, particularly Tom, who in 2010 retired after more than 20 years as executive director of Citizens for Modern Transit, a nonprofit organization based in St. Louis.  Now, Tom and Debra own and operate a consulting company called Avvantt Partners, which focuses on organizing community support for improved public transit. One of their clients has been Jackson County, for which they worked on a transit education program.

Missourians for Better Transportation Solutions will be a low-budget operation. But it will get out its message. The Shrouts are planning on having at least one direct-mail piece to frequent voters in Kansas City and St. Louis, and they’re exploring the possibility of yard signs.

In addition, I helped make arrangements for the committee’s purchase of a killer billboard. For strategic reasons, I’m not going to divulge the location at this time, but I can tell you it gets about 90,000 impressions a week, and it’s going to get us a lot of votes.

Tom and Debra are also active on social media — a beast that is foreign to this “dead-tree-media” fellow.

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Here’s a link to the web site of Missourians for Better Transportation Solutions. (I hope you will consider making a contribution.)

To learn more about Tom and Debra, go to http://www.avvantt.com/

In the event we get yard signs, send me an e-mail at jim.fitzpatrick06@gmail. com and let me know if you’d like one.

Finally, let me leave you with this thought. In the medical-research campaign, I saw how logic and passion can overcome big money. We’ve got those two elements again, and I wouldn’t trade them for the millions of dollars that the concrete cartel is spending to try to bamboozle Missourians to vote for Amendment 7.