VALDOSTA – On September 26, 2018, Valdosta Mayor John Gayle was awarded the ‘Outstanding Elected Official Leadership’ from the Association of Metropolitan Planning Organizations (AMPO) at the annual conference in San Antonio, Texas.
The award from AMPO honors outstanding efforts in transportation planning and leadership of an elected official who has served as a champion for their community and has successfully advanced or promoted transportation planning in the public arena.
Mayor John Gayle was nominated for the award by the Southern Georgia Regional Commission. Mayor Gayle has been a member of the Valdosta-Lowndes MPO Policy Committee for the Valdosta, Georgia Urbanized area since his election in 2010, and has previously served as Chair.
“Mayor Gayle has been instrumental in leading transportation projects and initiatives in Valdosta and Lowndes County since he was elected. He has spoken with me numerous times about finding solutions to reduce truck traffic in historic, downtown Valdosta and was the driving force behind finding a solution that the Georgia Department of Transportation is currently evaluating. Most recently, Mayor Gayle has shown tremendous regional leadership throughout South Georgia with the passing of the regional sales tax referendum,” said Russell McMurry, GDOT Commissioner.
In 2010, the Georgia Legislature passed the Transportation Investment Act that created regional sales tax districts in Georgia. This legislation required the first regional transportation sales tax vote to be held in July 2012. Even as a newly elected Mayor in 2012 who had not participated in the project development process, Mayor Gayle supported the 2012 referendum that ultimately failed. In 2017, counties from the region began to discuss a second attempt to pass a regional transportation sales tax. In Lowndes County, the only metropolitan county in the 18-county region, Mayor Gayle led the City of Valdosta Council to set a goal of developing a project list for the regional sales tax early in 2018, even before it was clearly evident the region would be pursuing a sales tax referendum. As counties decided to pursue the referendum, the enabling legislation required a regional transportation roundtable of two representatives from each county (the county commission chair, and a mayoral representative) to be formed. Mayor Gayle was selected by four other cities in Lowndes County to represent their municipal interests.
“The Executive Committee reviewed more than 250 projects over a series of nine meetings and countless emails and phone calls to arrive at a final investment list of 150 regional projects and formula funds for local governments resulting in an investment of more than $625 million over the next ten years,” said Tim Golden, State Transportation Board of the 8th Congressional District.
The 36-member Roundtable was then required to elect an Executive Committee. Mayor Gayle was elected by his peers as the non-voting chair of the Executive Committee, to help guide the project selection process for the regional transportation sales tax.
“Transportation planning has been a foundation of John’s administration. For nearly a year as the Executive Chair of an 18-county roundtable, he led us to pass a regional one cent sales tax for transportation. He not only arbitrated the contentious winnowing of 250 projects to the 150 that the tax could support, he also demonstrated good planning and public stewardship, as well as moral courage that will benefit our communities for years to come,” said Cam Jordan, City of Fitzgerald Deputy Administrator.
Throughout the nine Executive Committee meetings, Mayor Gayle was focused on implementing the requirements of the enabling legislation, while making sure that each community was heard in the process. Also during the project selection process, Mayor Gayle used the resources of the staff of the Southern Georgia Regional Commission (designated Valdosta-Lowndes Metropolitan Planning Organization) to seek data and information about the projects. He made sure the other Executive Committee members saw information like corridor crash data, employment data, and the regional significance of roadways. While the data in particular was not innovative, the process to use this data in selecting projects to implement the regional transportation sales tax was important.
“Mayor Gayle exhibited exceptional regional leadership for the City of Valdosta, the Valdosta Lowndes County Metropolitan area, and the entire 18-county Southern Georgia region through this regional sales tax process. Through this process Mayor Gayle has shown that Valdosta is the regional center of economic and political activity in the region and should be looked to in the future for guidance on issues facing the region,” said Corey Hull SGRC.
Mayor Gayle’s leadership ultimately proved to be successful and the regional sales tax passed on May 22, 2018 with 53% of the voters supporting the 18-county sales tax which will generate more than $500 million dollars in new transportation revenue for more than 150 projects over 10 years for the Southern Georgia region.
