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Dear County 10 Readers:
Well, the election is over and we can all take a deep breath for a little while. There are some issues of interest that I have been following. I would like to share my thoughts on them if you can spare a minute.
As I discussed in a recent post our ½ cent tax was in trouble the way that it was being administered. The intent of the tax was good with many well-meaning citizens on both sides of this issue. Now the challenge comes to deal with the loss of that revenue for our Airport, WRTA as well as ambulance services and general economic development. I hope that this tax is brought back as soon as possible with lessons learned.
The 1% tax was more successful and passed. That tax is very near and dear to me as it was initially passed in 2012 when I was with the city. After attending a recent FORCC meeting last Monday I came to a great revelation, to me at least, others may have seen it as I am a little slow on some things. This epiphany came to me as we were talking about the need for the repair of our airport road.
I estimated that the repair of this road could be done for about one million dollars (confirmed by a respected man in the business). This repair would consist of two-foot shoulders added to each side of the road with a two-inch overlay. This repair would be similar to the repair of pure gas road that was done several years ago and serves us well. As the discussion went on an engineers estimate of 5-9 million dollars would be needed to “fix” this road.
It became clear that the added costs were for infrastructure add ons. Such as water line replacement, moving power lines, curbs and gutters, storm sewer, decorative luminaries and easements which may not be needed as an overlay could be considered as “heavy maintenance.” The city is allowed to do maintenance without easement consideration. It became clear to me that our 1% tax has been “hijacked” and should be renamed to “fix our infrastructure”, FOICC tax.
I can tell you that this was never the intent of the 1% tax. This tax as initially conceived was to provide funding to repair roads so that they were safe and smooth to drive on.
As we discussed the needs it was reasonable to not build a new road over a bad water line, hence “infrastructure” was added to the ballot language. Over the years it has metastasized into something I do not recognize with snow fences on one side and cul-de-sacs on the other.
I voted for this tax this cycle but it will be the last time if the FORCC committee does not get back to its original charge.
Ron Warpness