If at first you don’t succeed at the ballot box, offer local officials millions of dollars in annual funding to prepare for Round 2 with the voters.

That seems to be the strategy of the Regional Transit Authority of Southeast Michigan (RTA).

Last week, Bret Rasegan from Oakland County Economic Development and Community Affairs and Ben Stupka, senior transportation planner for WSP USA, a consulting firm working for the RTA, made a presentation to the North Oakland Transportation Authority (NOTA) board regarding a proposed regional mass transit plan and the potential millage request to fund it.

RTA officials are considering placing a 20-year, 1.5-mill property tax request on the ballot this year in Oakland, Macomb, Wayne and Washtenaw counties. If the RTA board votes to send it to the voters and they approve it, the millage is expected to generate a total of $5.4 billion over the next two decades.

Connect Southeast Michigan is the name of the new transit plan, which has yet to be approved by the RTA board.

It’s meant to be the successor to the 2016 Regional Master Transit Plan, which was tied to the 20-year, 1.2-mill property tax request that failed in the November 2016 election. Among the four counties, 912,395 people voted ‘no’ and 894,078 voted ‘yes.’

Like its predecessor, Connect Southeast Michigan seeks to create an effective regional transit system to serve the four counties.

Unlike its predecessor, Connect Southeast Michigan would provide annual funding to enhance transportation services in “60 communities not serviced by fixed transit routes.”

Fixed transit routes involve a vehicle, such as a bus, that’s operated along a prescribed route based on a fixed schedule.

Among these 60 communities are Oxford, Addison and Orion townships.

This funding would be provided under what’s being called the Hometown Service program. The purpose of this, according to the plan, is to give these 60 communities “the opportunity to design and implement local services that best meet the specific mobility needs of their residents.”

Hometown Service would provide $30 million annually to the 60 communities to do things such as support existing transportation services, develop new programs, extend routes, provide commuter shuttles and establish local circulator services where a vehicle, such as a bus or rubber-tire trolley, makes frequent trips around a small geographic area with numerous stops along a route.

Of that $30 million, approximately $17 million would go annually to communities in Oakland County, including those currently served by NOTA, according to Stupka.

He said Hometown Service is “meant to return some funding” to the source communities.

Stupka explained the potential RTA millage is expected to generate “just under 200 million” in its first year and of that, $82 million (approximately 40 percent) would come from Oakland County.

The $17 million designated for Hometown Service communities in Oakland represents approximately 20 percent of the county’s total being returned to communities in the northern and western areas, according to Stupka.

He said NOTA could potentially use the Hometown Service money to help stabilize its budget and replace grant funding; move to “on-demand booking” (as opposed to NOTA’s current policy of users having to book rides at least three days in advance); increase funding for vehicle replacement and expansion; expand hours of operation; create and operate an M-24 commuter shuttle that connects Oxford and Orion to Auburn Hills, Rochester, Rochester Hills, Troy and Pontiac; and operate an M-24 circulator that would run between Oxford and Orion.

Rasegan explained to NOTA officials that he’s been directed by his superiors in county government to meet with communities and “try to understand what their local transportation needs are and if there’s any areas . . . (where) they need additional service or would like to see additional service in the future.”

“Whether the RTA goes anywhere or doesn’t go anywhere, that’s my assignment – to try to understand what the local needs are,” he said.

Speaking for himself, NOTA Chairman Bill Dunn, who’s also the supervisor for Oxford Township, told Rasegan “we don’t have any” transportation needs because the tri-township area is already served by NOTA.

NOTA provides low-cost, publicly-subsidized transportation for senior citizens, individuals with physical and/or developmental disabilities, and low-income folks living in Oxford, Addison and Orion townships along with the villages of Oxford, Leonard and Lake Orion.

Last year, NOTA provided a total of 38,877 rides and travelled a total of 484,149 miles within its 223-square-mile service area.

NOTA is primarily funded by local taxpayers via a mix of contributions from the municipalities and a dedicated property tax approved by Oxford and Orion voters in 2014 and Addison voters in 2015. The tax rate was originally 0.25 mill, but over the years, the Headlee Amendment has reduced it slightly in each township.

Mike Flood, an Orion Twp. trustee who serves on the NOTA board, brought his property tax bill to make a point to Stupka and Rasegan.

“There’s nothing more controversial in our community than taxes,” he told them.

Regional property taxes, such as those that help fund the Detroit Zoo and Detroit Institute of Arts, plus all the local property taxes for schools, libraries, etc. make it difficult for senior citizens and retirees living on fixed incomes to pay their bills and keep their homes, according to Flood.

“It just keeps piling on,” he said.

NOTA Board Member Chris Barnett, the supervisor for Orion Township, espoused a pragmatic view of the potential RTA millage.

If it ever makes it to the ballot again, he said it’s no secret that “it will widely fail in northern Oakland County.”

In 2016, Oxford voters thrashed the RTA millage request 6,783 to 3,366 and Addison voters thumped it 2,372 to 983.

“But that doesn’t necessarily mean it’s going to fail” again when the votes are tallied in all four counties, Barnett said.

“It barely failed two years ago,” he noted.

Barnett explained his “whole angle ” is if the RTA tax does pass this time around, he wants the money used to “bolster” and “strengthen” NOTA because “we can (deliver transportation) better, cheaper (and) more effectively than the RTA (can) out of an office in Detroit.”

“No one provides a better transportation service more cost-effectively and more lean and mean than NOTA,” he said.

“I think it would be really wise of us to have NOTA be the conduit for increasing service here in our region,” Barnett said.

Dunn said a lot of people have told him they believe the RTA has “a lot of gall” returning to the voters with a higher millage request than the one that failed in 2016.

“It just seems out of hand,” he said.

Rasegan told NOTA members “it’s very unlikely” the RTA millage request will make it to the ballot this year.

Local voters weren’t the only ones who expressed opposition to the RTA millage in 2016.

The Oxford and Addison township boards, along with the Oxford and Leonard village councils, all passed resolutions opposing it because they felt it would have led to northern Oakland County residents receiving little or no benefit in return for their tax dollars.