Mayor learning every day

I feel it's finally time for me to respond to the recent misunderstanding surrounding any type of earnings or commuter tax.

In a recent interview with a Southeast Missourian reporter that I viewed as a brainstorming session, I mentioned that we would be looking at a number of ways to potentially generate more revenue. Included in this discussion was the example of an earnings tax that some cities had implemented as a way to generate additional revenue. This was one of the first times that this concept had even been mentioned by myself, and I even qualified the comment by stating that I was in no way advocating that we implement this tax but rather that we explore all options.

Well, I'm learning. It appears as though I truly underestimated the ripple effect that the mere mention of these taxes would cause. That being said, it is very important for me to set the record straight with our surrounding neighbors as well as our own Cape Girardeau residents.

The confusion surrounding the mention of this tax has served to potentially alienate our surrounding neighbors, and for that I take full responsibility.

This is not the message that I wish to communicate to our neighboring communities. The message that I would like to convey is that Cape Girardeau clearly does have some financial challenges ahead, challenges that will require us to review any and all options.

Will these options include reviewing a commuter tax? Probably not. As many of your readers have pointed out, it is pretty clear that this would not be a responsible thing to do!

What we will do is assess the challenges, educate ourselves and the community as to what the challenges are and then hopefully earn people's support to implement the solutions.

As Wednesday's editorial indicated, I am very different from former Mayor Al Spradling. Mayor Spradling was a quiet, low-profile leader, and it served him very well. I, on the other hand, am much more vocal and not nearly as politically savvy as our former mayor. These qualities can be both good and bad and, in this particular instance, they probably didn't serve me very well.

Brevity may have been a better course of action, but sometimes we have to learn lessons the hard way.

Being elected mayor of this great city is an extreme honor and one that I take very seriously.

I hope it's OK for the mayor to admit that he's learning every day.

Jay Knudtson is the mayor of Cape Girardeau.