SUNSET — In November, Davis residents may again vote on a sales tax increase for transportation and transit projects.

But county leaders are still discussing the best way to sell such a tax increase to voters.

Though they may not have to, according to a new law.

The November 2007 election saw the defeat of a .25-cent sales-tax increase by 58 percent to 42 percent in Davis County.

However, the tax increase found enough favor in Weber and southern Box Elder counties to pass. Weber's margin was 50 percent to 49 percent, or 283 votes, and Box Elder's margin was 69 percent to 31 percent, or 2,277 votes.

If the tax had been approved in November in Davis County, county commissioners would likely have implemented the sales tax this year to start saving money for transportation projects and corridor preservation.

"We still have critical transportation needs, and we need to look at how we're going to fund those needs, particularly for corridor preservation," Davis County director of community and economic development Wilf Sommerkorn told the Davis County Council of Governments Wednesday.

The .25-cent sales-tax increase was projected to earn between $10 million and $12 million during 2008 in Davis County.

In Weber County, it will likely earn $8.7 million, and in Box Elder, it will likely earn $800,000 to speed up the construction of commuter rail.

Officials in Davis are discussing putting the sales-tax increase to a vote again because hundreds of millions of dollars are needed in the county for corridor preservation alone, and the current method of raising money for corridors — an annual $10 surcharge on vehicle registrations — has netted the county about $1.3 million.

Sommerkorn told the COG, which is a committee of Davis County's mayors and a representative from Hill Air Force Base, the Davis Chamber of Commerce and Davis Area Convention and Visitors Bureau, that a list of prioritized projects may help sell the tax increase to voters.

That list didn't exist in the November 2007 election.

John Pitt, president and CEO of the Davis Chamber, said the lack of specific uses for the tax money was the biggest hurdle the measure faced in the election.

"We need a concrete list or people just can't get their heads around it," he said. "(If not,) we will run into another wall of opposition."

Polls commissioned by the Northern Utah Transportation Alliance before the election showed 57 percent of people would have supported the tax increase.

Sommerkorn said the .25-cent tax increase, which requires that 25 percent of tax revenue be dedicated to corridor preservation, isn't the only option county officials are studying.