Residents' two cents on half-cent tax

In the coffee shops, barbershops and beauty parlors, skepticism about county road plans is tempered with a willingness to be convinced to approve a sales-tax increase.

At the Route K One Stop, talk about the sales-tax proposal is mostly negative, questioning whether officials can be trusted to keep their promise to spend the extra revenue on roads and more deputies. The same is true among the group who gathers every morning at the Burger King on East Jackson Boulevard.

But in a Cape Girardeau barbershop, as well as a beauty parlor next door, the removal of a property tax currently on the books and a sense that the sales tax would more fairly spread the burden are the predominant opinions.

On Aug. 8, Cape Girardeau County voters will make a decision on Proposition 1, a half-cent increase in the sales tax that would raise about $5.9 million annually. The tax would pay for an accelerated county paving program for gravel roads, more deputies for the sheriff's department and elimination of county road and bridge property taxes.

When county commissioners decided to put the issue before voters, they said they chose the August election because the November ballot will be crowded with statewide questions and the April ballot is traditionally the time when school districts put their proposals forward.

If approved, county road paving projects to cover gravel roads with a layer of asphalt would be accelerated from about 33 miles by 2012 to about 53 miles.

Edwin Peetz joins a group of friends almost every morning at the Route K One Stop east of Gordonville for coffee and conversation. He lives on County Road 332 south of Jackson, which he said has "a lot of traffic and is pretty dusty."

No trust

He's not, however, willing to vote for the tax proposal. He doesn't trust county officials to keep their promise to spend the money on roads.

Under the state law being used to put the tax on the ballot, the tax is a general revenue proposal. That means it could be diverted to other uses at the whim of the county commission.

"I think they are just going to p--- it away," Peetz said. "If it went to the right places it would be OK, but I don't think the money will go to the right places."

Ron Abernathy, who also is a regular at the One Stop, said he, too, doesn't trust county leaders. "In the past they have said they are going to do things and they don't follow through."

Cape Girardeau County will spend about $2.4 million this year on maintaining county roads. The county receives about $1.2 million from road and bridge property taxes, almost $700,000 from state fuel taxes and another $260,000 from sales tax and fees on motor vehicles.

The current paving program relies on interest income from the county's emergency fund, which provides about $300,000 annually.

After paying to replace revenue from the county property tax and the property tax of the Cape Girardeau Special Road District, the county would have about $3.1 million of new revenue from the tax. Funding for extra help for the sheriff's department is expected to cost up to $1 million, leaving $2.1 million for road improvements.

A large portion of that would be consumed by contracts to prepare county roads for paving, work done now by the county highway department. The contracting would be necessary, highway administrator Scott Bechtold has said, to prepare the extra miles of road that would be paved under the proposal.

Paul Summers, who lives on Route K, was one of the few customers at the One Stop who had a favorable opinion of the tax proposal. "I suppose they do need the additional revenue for the sheriff's department and the county roads," Summers said. "And the other positive is that someone other than property owners share in the upkeep of the roads."

At the coffee klatch at the Burger King on East Jackson Boulevard, anti-tax feelings run strong. Bill Unger of Jackson said he worries the county will reimpose the property tax in future years if the road fund runs short.

"I'm not going to vote for anything the politicians put up," Unger said. "They don't ever eliminate taxes, they just add more."

Mike Wood of Jackson said he sees little benefit from the proposal. And he plans to vote. "If you don't vote, everybody in that cemetery up there died in vain," he said. "If you do vote, you can run your mouth every day of the year."

A property tax is the best way to pay for paving roads, he said, because the main benefit is higher property values for landowners along the roads.

But for Larry Nelson, who talked about the tax as Rob Roberts cut his hair in the Plaza Barber Shop in Cape Girardeau, a sales tax is fairer than a property tax because it spreads the costs to everyone. "People who don't have any property aren't paying any taxes," he said. "Maybe it won't lower my taxes, but it will make them pay."

The next man in Roberts' barber chair was Hubert Bachmann, who lives on County Road 621 about a half-mile outside of Cape Girardeau. The road was paved recently by the Cape Special Road District. "We've got a beautiful road," he said.

The proposed tax increase, he said, will draw revenue from everyone who makes purchases in Cape Girardeau County. That's an argument used repeatedly by county officials promoting the tax, pointing to the large percentage of sales to consumers from outside the county.

Spreading the tax burden evenly is also appealing to Bachmann. "Right now, people without any property aren't paying any tax, so they are getting a free ride out of it."

Down Plaza Way at Plaza Hair Care, Sharon Cook talked about the tax proposal while she styled Alice Hopper's hair. Cook is a resident of Allenville in southwest Cape Girardeau County, and she's happy with the work done recently on County Road 241.

But she's not happy with the time it took to get the road paved. "It took years for us to get it done. The county guy told us he didn't worry about us."

'It's a good deal'

Cook's not fond of tax increases, she said, but she sees the advantage of a sales tax that would capture money from sales to people who live outside the county.

"To me, its a good deal," she said.

And Madge Limbaugh, another stylist at the salon, said she's ready for smoother county roads. Once while driving down a road that had been eroded into a gravel washboard, she said, her rear-view mirror fell off.

"Some people think that if they don't use it, they shouldn't have to pay for it," she said. "But everybody does have to pay."

rkeller@semissourian.com

335-6611, extension 126