DEXTER ASKS HALF-CENT TAX FOR NEW POOL ON BALLOT

By Annabeth Miller

Daily Statesman

DEXTER, Mo. It sat empty and unused and was eerily quiet all summer. There were no swimming parties, no refreshing dips in the cool water, no swimming laps for exercise.

The 30-year-old Dexter Municipal Pool a facility that had seen its fair share of use but was in dire need of essential and expensive repairs was closed last summer.

City officials decided repairs would have been a matter of "throwing good money into a hole," but on the November ballot, city residents will decide the fate of a sales tax to lay the financial groundwork to build a new swimming facility.

Tax helps parks

The Dexter Board of Aldermen has placed on the general election ballot a half-cent sales tax to fund the city's Parks and Recreation Department.

The measure is backed by a grass-roots citizens' group, Partners Advancing Recreation & Kids, with Ward 2 Alderman Mark Snider as the group's coordinator.

"This issue really has two parts for the citizens of Dexter," Snider said. "First is the passage of this one-half penny sales tax, and the second part is that if the sales tax is passed, the city parks mill tax will be eliminated."

The one-half penny sales tax will be earmarked specifically for the city's parks department, with a top priority being the planning and construction of a new pool facility.

"If passed, this sales tax will fund the Parks and Recreation Department," Snider commented. "This will be their budget."

Projections show a sales tax will not only take care of the existing needs of the department but will allow for the construction of the new pool.

Not all items subject to tax

The half-cent sales tax would exclude certain items, Snider said.

Specifically, the sales tax would exclude prescription medication and utilities. In addition, people living outside the city limits but purchasing a vehicle in the city would not be affected.

"This sales tax really amounts to mere pennies pennies that can be used to ensure the quality of life in our community," Snider said, adding:

"This sales tax would add about one quarter to the average weekly grocery shopping bill of about $50. Just 25 cents that will help guarantee that our community will be the kind of community where we will want and our children will want to live."

"We hop in our cars on weekends and shop in Poplar Bluff, Cape Girardeau or Sikeston, and we never once think about all the taxes that are added onto our purchases and what they are doing for those communities," Snider said. "To get our community to grow you have to have the revenue. This is one of those ways to help our community grow."

Aldermen thought the abatement of the city's property tax was a fair idea to pair with the sales tax proposal, he said.