It was budget time back when the City of McCook was preparing the last campaign to do a "local option" sales tax. Talking about how tight the budget was when relying solely on  property tax revenue, Mayor Flora Lundberg stated that "I personally know all those department heads and not a one would ask for one dollar more that is absolutely required to operate their department." Boy did she live in a dream world. In actuality, each department head is in there attempting to get his department as much money as possible to operate for the coming year. The council has to make spending equal revenue, a constant battle.

That is the position of City Manager Kurt in pursuing sales tax revenue; get as much money as possible to operate the city.  That is his job, just as it is the job of the council to make decisions for long-term health of the city.

I attended the "Sales Tax Town Hall Meeting" last week. I counted 28 interested citizens and 14  staff/council in attendance. Leigh Hoyt represented the county and non-residents.  Most everybody had great projects in mind that would be "wonderful" if we just had the money. Touted was the record of building that the last sales tax issue enabled.  Central air in the auditorium, new Sen-ior Center, YMCA building, Kiplinger Arena, new ball park upgrades, B Street im-provement, pay down the water improvement loan, two new Habitat for Humanity single family homes and more.  "What," you say, "the Habitat Homes, the Kiplinger Arena and YMCA were built with donated funds, no tax money involved."?

You mean that if a project is badly needed, people will show community support, provide the time and money to actually make it possible. Whatever happened to that novel concept?

A bit of background here.  Ever since our state legislators authorized the cities to have a cut of the sales tax revenue, McCook tried to get the voters to go along with the scheme. The voters weren't convinced and kept voting NO. The last unsuccessful attempt was a request for one cent to be split evenly between the city and the McCook Economic Devel-opment Corp. After that try failed, some good heads got together and figured out that the issue might pass if half the proceeds were specifically tied to "property tax relief" and the other half would be spent on specific projects that were detailed before the election. The other critical provision was that the whole taxing authority would expire in five years. That worked because people knew where the added tax money would be spent, and they also knew that it would be for a limited amount of time. The issue passed and it is now time to put it on the ballot again.

I heard none of that understanding and planning at the "Sales Tax Town Hall Meeting" last week. A straw vote showed the majority present thought they should go for the maximum tax rate allowed and that the sunset provision would be omitted. If that is the plan I predict failure at the ballot box and the city will be operating on their property tax levy capped at 30 cents.

Setting a budget is one of the toughest things that elected councils are called to do.  Somehow it is easier to simply bump up the tax levy rather than tell the people working for you no. But it is the council's job to say no to unneeded projects and live within the expected revenue. Todd Cappel ably illustrated the concept in Tuesday's Gazette.

It is my suggestion that if the council wants a sales tax issue to succeed on the ballot this fall, it should be limited to one cent and have a sunset date.  Split the proceeds however you may, but please don't advertise that the measure will grant property tax relief for citizens of McCook, which it will.

That term "property tax relief" is like a sharp poke in the eye for any outsider contributing money to our economy because they know darn well that they can't vote and are getting no relief!

That is the way I see it.