Why a special election?

Dear Editor,

It has been stated that City of McCook must have this sales tax vote now because they need enough time to present the vote a second time should it fail and to know if they have the extra revenue until 2033. That, in and of itself, should be an indicator that the City of McCook local sales tax, which was promoted for special projects, has now become a permanent revenue stream to the city budgets. The law states that a city cannot present it for a vote for 23 months after a ballot initiative fails, not 24 months as the city

manger has stated publicly, so this could have been voted on during the May 2016 primary or November 2016 general election and still allow the required 23 months for a revote. A special election helps improve chances of passage and keeps the turnout low so that only those motivated or those that have a vested interest will vote versus a regular election most city voters are accustomed to. It is time to change that and send a clear message that what they are doing with the sales tax vote isn't right.

I would support a local sales tax option if it wasn't so misrepresented and actually used to REPLACE a revenue source for the city rather than just increase the overall city budget. For example when most of the voters hear the term "property tax relief" you might assume that your property taxes will go down. Nothing could be further from the truth. Property taxes did not go down and all local sales tax did was increased the overall spending by the city. I have yet to hear any city council member, past or present, suggest lowering the property tax levy and in the past they have even proposed new city taxes even when they had as much as $400,000 in uncommitted sales tax funds.

During the last special election in 2007 to extend the current sales tax ten years and increase it to 1.5%, the city manager at the time was telling the public that this wouldn't increase the size of local government and if residents didn't support it the city would raise property taxes. The overall city budget has gone from 15.8 million in 2001/2002 to 31.8 million for this current budget year of 2014/2015. Was he misinformed or just telling people what they wanted to hear? Another argument the city leaders make for this tax is to help grow our population and that hasn't happened. I don't see any evidence that taxing people more will create economic growth. Sales or consumption taxes are quite regressive, meaning they impact low-income people more than higher income earners as a total percentage of income spent on a sales tax. I will admit that this is one of the fairest ways to fund the government meaning everyone pays the same tax rate when they spend money.

However, when this is tax is used and the government doesn't reduce or eliminate another form of tax revenue then it can become a detriment to the economy. As the government taxes and spends more money then our freedoms and liberties are eroded.

One question I have, if the local sales tax has done so much good, why does the city have to play the special election games to keep it in place?

Just place it on a normal ballot and let the public vote on it. It appears that there is a big project in the works that isn't being disclosed at this time, specifically.

Sure they have covered all of their bases in the language of the ballot.

I suspect that if approved, you will find out about it after the special election, like the public did after the sales tax vote in 2007 with the Keystone project and new city municipal center.

I encourage you to vote against the local sales tax and force the city council and manager to be more transparent with what they plan to do with more than $40 million dollars from 2018-2033. If they can make a better case and prove they can do a better job at prioritizing their spending, or show that they can reduce the city property tax requests, then by all means support it. As it stands now this is just going to be a continuation of a giant slush fund for city government to increase overall spending.

Todd Cappel

McCook, Nebraska