Vote ‘Yes’ on the penny to protect public safety

By Leon Lott

There are many good reasons to vote Yes for the penny sales tax on Nov. 6, but I have a particular concern as Richland County sheriff.

That additional penny on the dollar will, over the course of 22 years, raise $1.07 billion that will be spent on a greatly improved bus system, critically needed road improvements, sidewalks, bike lanes and nature trails.

In some ways my attitude is typical. As a proud citizen of this county, I’m often embarrassed to see how far ahead other communities are. When I traveled to San Diego recently for a conference, the 30,000 police officers attending all used public transit, and found it easy and convenient. Those officers would have had a lot more trouble getting around in Columbia.

But as sheriff, I have another reason: Passage of the penny will help protect public safety in Richland County.

The penny will provide infrastructure that can be life-saving. It will pave hundreds of dirt roads across the country. This is about far more than convenience. When sheriff’s deputies and ambulances can’t get down a dirt road because it’s turned to mud, people can die.

But this is not just about little-used country lanes. Throughout Richland County, we have outgrown our roads.

Some of our best-travelled avenues can be just as impassable in an emergency. For most motorists, a traffic jam is an inconvenience. But in an emergency, traffic congestion is a deadly obstacle for law enforcement, fire, and medical emergency vehicles.

Consider Hard Scrabble Road. As Dawn Hinshaw wrote in The State recently, that road was designed to handle 10,000 cars a day. That may sound perfectly adequate, but now 26,000 vehicles try to squeeze their way down that bottleneck every day.

Multiply that situation by 62, because that’s how many such urban corridors would be improved by the penny.

And it’s not just about motorists; our overtaxed roads are highly dangerous for those who try to walk or ride bicycles along them.

As for public transit – you may say, I don’t ride the bus. Neither do I, but I rely upon our inadequate system just the same. The bus stop in front of the sheriff’s department is heavily used. We rely on it to enable crime victims and essential witnesses to get to our office – often, they have no other way of getting here. And without them, we can’t fight crime effectively.

That’s the direct effect. The indirect effect runs broader, and deeper. Not everybody is fortunate enough to be able to afford a personal vehicle, and those who can’t need the buses to get to work.

Far too often, a person who loses his job because he can’t get a ride to work will turn to crime to support his family. It’s all well and good to say that’s no excuse, but whether it should happen or not, it happens. I know, because I have to deal with the consequences.

Today, some of our honest, hard-working neighbors can’t get to work when they need to – or to the doctor, or the grocery, or many other important errands that those of us who own cars take for granted.

You say you don’t want to pay any more taxes? Again, neither do I. But our community can’t afford not to make this modest contribution toward our future, and our children’s future.

So you have to give up a penny on each dollar you spend. If this referendum doesn’t pass, you’ll give up a lot more in crime, lack of public safety, and economic growth that fails to happen.

We can’t afford NOT to vote Yes on the penny.