Survey: Jackson residents would support tax for fire station

More than half of Jackson residents who responded to a survey compiled by the city's Community Outreach Board are in support of a sales tax to help fund a fire substation.

The board sent out 4,000 surveys to Jackson residents in June. Of those, 745 were returned.

"That is an 18 percent response rate, which is fair," said Desma Reno, Community Outreach Board chairwoman. "Usually it's good to get about a 20 percent response rate so we were real close."

The survey asked residents questions about the quality of life in Jackson, how they felt about the city's growth, the school district, public safety and city maintenance issues.

The biggest issue on the survey, which pleased city leaders and Jackson fire chief Brad Golden, was a question on whether residents would support a sales tax to add a fire substation. Currently there is only one fire station in Jackson, which results in slower response times to certain areas of the city and may possibly increase home insurance rates.

"We're happy that the public showed support for increased emergency services," Jackson Mayor Paul Sander said. "The time is drawing near for us to make some decisions on a new station, and obviously the public showed us that there was support for a sales tax."

Almost 400 of the respondents said they would support a sales tax for a new fire substation. More than 200 said they might support the tax if they were provided more information.

Sander said a new substation isn't in the '06 budget plans but by 2007 it might be a possibility.

"We have to do several things before we start working on the plans for this," he said. "We have to pin down a location, find out some costs to build this, but we're coming real close."

If everything falls into place, a sales tax to help with costs of a new station could be a ballot item in 2006, Sander said.

Golden said he's pleased with the overall support of the Jackson residents.

"The results of the survey are real positive," Golden said. "We're looking forward to moving along with the city and the residents at getting a new fire substation."

Sander said the survey was helpful for city leaders.

"It's good to let the residents have the opportunity to tell us what is good in the city and what can be improved," he said. "I don't think you can ever go wrong asking the residents what they think."

Almost 85 percent, or 635 of respondents, were satisfied with life in Jackson.

Good schools, community values, safety, beautiful parks and friendly neighbors were the qualities the respondents liked most about living in Jackson.

The main concern residents had about the city were issues dealing with traffic flow and road conditions.

"Obviously we are aware of the traffic flow issue and we are trying to do something about it," Sander said. "We have done a traffic study and we've been implementing some of those improvements as we can afford them."

The two main improvements to help with traffic flow include the East Main St. extension and the Missouri Department of Transportation's widening project that will expand Highway 34/72 from two lanes to four.

City leaders believe when these two projects are complete, it will be a big improvement to help ease traffic congestion. One area that continues to plague the city is Highway 61 around the county courthouse.

"That continues to be a bottleneck area and at times during the day it's very congested," Sander said. "We're going to have to work with MoDOT on that and I don't know if there will be a total solution to that or not. But we'll work on it."

The Community Outreach Board was formed to look at ways to improve the general quality of life in Jackson, especially for the youth and seniors of the city.

jfreeze@semissourian.com