Getting a unified consensus on the question of a city sales tax has prompted another City Council Committee of the Whole meeting.
Council members and city officials met Wednesday, May 26, for more than an hour discussing various facets of the tax proposal. They are scheduled to meet again this week, at 4 p.m. Wednesday, June 2, to continue the discussion.
At the May 18 City Council meeting, Merrill White asked other city officials to consider adding parks as a recipient of a portion of the tax revenue. The ordinance had been written allocating portions to Streets, Police and Fire with a portion being used to pay off a bond issue the city plans to ask for to raise $5.8 million for the Street Department.
"What we're doing right now ... we're doing the split," Mayor Jackie Crabtree said, explaining that the city does not currently have a plan for enhancing or adding to parks and so could not justify allocating money to parks without a specific plan.
"People say we want a park and will ask what we're going to do. We don't know," Crabtree said. "We can't do that. We have to have a plan."
Kevin Faught, senior vice president with Stephens Public Finance, said it is estimated that the 1% tax would generate about $1 million a year.
Nathan See, city Street Department superintendent, told Council members he is working with someone for an "all-inclusive playground" on six acres on Carr Street and North Curtis Avenue and that it would include a dog park and walking trail. He said he hopes to get a grant for the project.
"I actually think it's easier to get grants for projects like that than it is to get equipment for departments," City Clerk Sandy Button said.
The mayor told council members they needed to have unity in the decision in order to encourage voters to approve the request for the tax.
City building official Tony Townsend said "we have failing roads all through town. Streets should be high on the list."
City Council member Ginger Larsen said: "Personally, on a personal not council, I see the benefit both ways -- of percentages and just putting it in city general; but the feedback I have received ... would be ... that's not what the citizens believe."
She said the feedback she has received is that the citizens want the Fire Department to be funded and don't trust the council to designate the funds at the appropriate time.
"It's all useless without it. I want it all to pass, but my fear is that if we don't designate it, it won't," Larsen said.
"I want it to pass. I want them all to get what they need. my fear is that if we don't pass it with percentages .... I don't think it will pass," she said.
"No matter what you say and what you do, you're not making someone happy... We have to make sure we're taking care of Fire Department, Police Department and Street Department," Larsen said. "And if they (voters) think they're getting something personal from it -- "spreading that love a little bit" --it pulls people in."
"I hear a consensus in the room," city attorney Shane Perry said. "I'm listening (this is politics at its best) and I'm hearing a strong urge to continue with the percentages... to make it pass, if we're going to designate... that some percentage should be assigned to parks."
"To push it through, we've all got to be on the same page," Council member Steve Guthrie said. "We need to shore up police, fire, streets to free up city general to do things like parks, library and free up those line items on the city budget. We need to be in agreement on this body."
Faught reminded city officials that in order to make an August election, the ordinance had to be passed and filed 60 days before the election.