TAX BACKERS FEAR APATHY (TRANSPORTATION SALES TAX; ON THE ROADS AGAIN; THIRD IN A SERIES)

With only a single-issue on Tuesday's election ballot, Harry Rediger worries about voter apathy.

Rediger chairs the Planning and Zoning Commission and is one of the leading lproponents of the ballot maeasure, a five-year half-cent transportation sales tax.

Late summer isn't a great time for an election, he admits. Many people are on vactation and few people get enthusiastic about higher taxes.

"The `no' voters will get out a little quicker than the `yes' votes," he said.

That makes it all the mor important to get out the vote, Rediger said.

He and other civic leaders have formed the Transportation Trust Committee to9 push for passage of the tax.

To get out the vote, the committee is running radio and television commercials and newspaper ads. The committee also plans to man phone banks.

The city mailed one-page information sheets to about 12,000 city vogters.

This marks the third time in nine years voters have been asked to approve a half-cent transportation tax. Voters rejected the two previous measures in 1986 and 1987.

The word trust figures prominently in this campaign, Rediger said.

If voters approve the sales tax, all the money would go into a trust fund and could only be spent for roads, bridges and sidewalks.

The City Council also has committed itself to spending the tax dollars on a priority list of 20 projects, including repairs to streets and sidewalks.

The tax will automatically expire in five years unless extended by the voters.

Rediger views the sunset clause as a selling point with the voters. "Anything with a sunset on it is a little more palatable."

On Aug. 5, 1986, Cape girardeau residents rejected a permanent half-cent transportation tax by 171 votes even though the tax passed in more than half of the city's precincts.

Much of that voter opposition was in the Red Star neighborhood and on the city's south side.

A year later, on Aug. 4, 1987, voters rejected a similar tax by an even bigger margin even though the tax would have been limited to five years.

In 1987, the margin of defeat was 332 votes. the measure passed in only four of the city's 16 precincts.

In that election, a group of businessmen mounted last-minute opposition.

About 40 percent of the city's voters went to the polls in 1986 when the tax was one of three issues on the ballot.

But only 24 percent bothered to vote on the tax issue the next year when it was one of two issues on the ballot.

Voter turnout is typically low in august elections when there are no state races or issues on the ballot.

Lois Boston, Cape girardeau County deputy clerk, believes the turnout will be better, however, than in the April election when only 14 percent of Cape girardeau County voters went to the polls.

By late in the week, 55 people had cast absentee ballots at the county clerk's office in Cape girardeau.

Paper ballots will be used Tuesday because the city election is the only one in Cape Girardeau County.

The votes will be counted at the A.C. Brase Arena Building in Cape Girardeau instead of at the county administrative building in Jackson.

The city and the Cape Girardeau Chamber of Commerce spent about $13,000 combined prior to the August 1986 election, the city in publicizing facts about the issue and the chamber promoting it.

In 1987, tax supporters spent nearly $9,000 in the election campaign. On the other side, the Six-Thirty Corp. spent $626 on two last-minute newspaper ads that raised questions about the tax measure.

So far in this year's campaign, the Transportation Trust Committee has raised nearly $7,000 and spent $3,000.

Sunday: Many residents along streets targeted for improvements still haven't decided how they will vote Tuesday. A businessman who opposed the tax in 1987 now favors it.