Cape taking fire tax plan to clubs again

Cape Girardeau city officials will rely on presentations to civic clubs to promote passage of a fire sales tax on the June 8 ballot, the same strategy that failed to win voter support of four tax and fee issues last April.

Those measures included a quarter-cent fire sales tax, which is back on the ballot for the June vote but with a more specific proposal on how the money would be spent for public safety.

The tax, if approved by a simple majority, would raise an estimated $2 million annually for the fire department for the next 10 years, including money to replace an aging fire station and indirectly help the short-staffed police department by freeing up money in the general fund to recruit and retain officers. Half of the tax would expire after 10 years. The other half would be permanent.

City manager Doug Leslie said he and other city staff members will speak to as many groups as possible about the tax issue, primarily in the six weeks leading up to the election.

However, that approach may not be enough, said Southeast Missouri State University political science professor Russell Renka.

Renka said civic club members are more likely to support local tax issues than the average voter. "You are preaching to the converted," he said.

Nor should city officials count on winning the tax vote simply because voter turnout might be low in a summer election, Renka said.

"Turnouts are almost always low," he said of local elections. But "you get a lot of people who go to the polls specifically to vote down any tax."

Elderly residents are regular voters in elections and often oppose tax measures, Renka said.

City officials need to make an effort to talk to voters who aren't in civic clubs and encourage club members to promote the tax to their friends and church members.

"If they want to be timid, they will pay the price and keep losing," he said.

Another way to get the city's message out is through television. But tax issues typically receive little coverage on local commercial television news programs, said Renka. City officials will have to work harder to promote the tax proposal if they want television coverage, he said.

Renka said city officials should consider sell the tax measure by going door to door -- "the way the Girl Scouts sell cookies."

'We cannot be advocates'

But city officials say they can't campaign aggressively to pass the tax without violating city and state laws.

"We can only provide information," city manager Doug Leslie said. "We cannot be advocates of the issue."

A Cape Girardeau city ordinance prohibits city employees from distributing literature of any kind "favoring or opposing any municipal issue or candidate for election or nomination to a municipal public office."

The ordinance also prohibits city employees from wearing campaign buttons in support of a candidate or issue.

City attorney Eric Cunningham said the city, for example, can't hang a banner on city hall urging voters to approve the June tax issue.

City officials said there's there also a funding issue. While they legally could spend tax dollars on television, radio and newspaper advertising to inform the voters, the public might consider it an unwise expense particularly when the city has a limited operating budget.

Cunningham said the city historically has tried to be "a good steward" of tax dollars.

Leslie said any media campaign for passage of the tax would have to be done by an outside group, not city government.

mbliss@semissourian.com

335-6611, extension 123