Robert Lee Harris

Opinion contributor

I love it when citizens find their voice and are willing to enter the public debates about the important issues of the day. That’s why Neil Kelly’s recent op- ed complaining about Hamilton County Commissioner Todd Portune and the need to find a funding solution for the Southwest Ohio Regional Transit Authority (SORTA) caught my eye.

Like me, Kelly is a disabled man, depending on his motorized wheelchair for mobility. Also like me, Kelly is very passionate about and committed to finding solutions for SORTA that stabilize our struggling bus system.

Portune understands what SORTA needs. He is, without question, the most knowledgeable local elected official when it comes to transit and about what must be done to stabilize and grow our transit authority. Portune lives and breathes transit. He knows that the only way to adopt a new funding base for SORTA is to grow SORTA’s funding base and to expand SORTA’s service throughout the region and to people with disabilities.

Don’t kid yourself. Portune understands what SORTA needs. He is passionate about stabilizing the existing transit authority. He wrote the SORTA charter in 2008! And in it, he obtained unanimous consent around a mission statement and a charge that paved the way for SORTA to grow its service and its funding. For a decade, he has tried to get SORTA and others to implement that mission. As a member of the board, I know that it is moving in that direction.

Mr. Kelly, can you and will you push and encourage your fellow citizens to stop attacking each other out of frustration and start coming together to form consensus that addresses our common needs and brings about an end to our crisis?

Portune is right to fight for expanded service that connects the region, to look to implement new technology, to grow SORTA’s funding from multiple sources and, most importantly, to develop a funding plan that has the consensus of all parties involved, including and especially, the Hamilton County commissioners.

Right now, the county commissioners oppose the penny tax plan that Kelly and others are promoting. Portune's opposition is based on sound reasoning. The penny plan makes it more difficult for businesses to succeed here because Hamilton County would then have the highest sales tax of any county in Ohio.

Portune is also right to oppose the current plan because it hurts the county’s need to balance its budget. Portune and the other two commissioners do not have the luxury of focusing on only one issue. It is their job to balance the county’s budget so that other important concerns such as jail overcrowding, public safety patrols, combating the heroin epidemic, reducing infant mortality and other services can also be solved, while at the same time, the county works to fulfill its obligations in the SORTA debate.

Portune is right that we need a balanced and consensual plan developed with everyone at the table. Only with everyone’s consent will a plan rise to the top that has a chance of success at the ballot.

History shows us that, to date, every effort to adopt a countywide funding base, needing voter support has failed at the ballot box. People need to stop fighting Portune and start working with him. This bus rider knows that Portune is right, and we had better start to listen to him and work with him before another countywide levy for transit fails at the polls.

Please, Mr. Kelly, come and bring your constituents with you and encourage all who are affected to come together and work to solve this crisis now and for the future. We can! And, if and when we do come together to solve this crisis, WE WILL!

Robert Lee Harris lives in East Walnut Hills and is a member of the SORTA Board of Trustees. He is an inclusion consultant at Bridges for a Just Community.