SPLOST a close win: Rome, Cave Spring voters push sales tax package to victory
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Voters passed a $42.3 million special purpose, local option sales tax by 51.15 percent Tuesday, guaranteeing its centerpiece — an 800 megaherz digital trunking emergency communications system.
Floyd County Emergency Management Agency Director Scotty Hancock was among the officials who spent the evening at the County Ad-
ministration Building, nervously awaiting each precinct count. The final result: 3,753 to 3,584.
“We made it,” Hancock said with a sigh of relief. “Seventy-three percent of this SPLOST was for public safety, and I think the public will see us better able to perform our duties — like we should have years ago.”
The vote also spelled victory for backers of an industrial park at the corner of Ga. 140 and Ga. 53; a Barron Stadium makeover with artificial turf; a new fire department headquarters and emergency operations center; and an expansion of the cramped offices of the 15-county Northwest Georgia Regional Commission, formerly the Coosa Valley Regional Development Center.
Cave Spring also won a $350,000 offset for its $8.3 million water system upgrade.
Turnout was 16.67 percent countywide — but it was the voters in the cities of Rome and Cave Spring who put the 1-cent sales tax over the top. Cave Spring voted 191 to 143 in favor of the SPLOST, and the ballot question passed in all six Rome precincts.
The measure failed in 16 of 18 precincts in the unincorporated area. Only Alto Park, 239 to 200, and Riverside, 43 to 35, had majority support for the penny tax.
Rome Mayor Wright Bagby Jr. was celebrating the vote but said he’s disappointed the city again ended up carrying the vote.
“If we hadn’t had SPLOST for the last 23 years we’d be a different place, or have a huge bonded debt,” he said. “There would be a change in thinking if people started looking at everything we wouldn’t have without a SPLOST.”
Residents in the unincorporated area voted against six of the 12 previous packages, although Rome votes pushed 10 of them over the 50-percent mark.
Tuesday’s win means Floyd County’s sales tax will remain at seven cents on the dollar, without a break, when the 2006 SPLOST collection expires June 30, 2010. The 2009 SPLOST collection will run three years, to June 30, 2013.
The ballot question also included permission to issue up to $20 million in SPLOST-backed bonds to jump-start the projects before revenue starts rolling in.
None of the precincts favoring the tax topped Cave Spring’s 57.19 percent margin of support, and informal polling showed the recession was a concern throughout the county. But the same fears didn’t always produce the same result.
Danny Abrams in the Glenwood precinct said the cost of the package was just too much.
“I feel like the intent is good with the SPLOST, but so many things have been piled onto it that it ends up hurting people with the way the economy is now,” he said.
But East Rome voter Ben Farrer said the penny sales tax lightens the burden on residents by tapping visitors as well.
“I just think that it’s a good way to fund some things to help our community,” Farrer said.
Staff Writer John Bailey and Staff Photographer Ryan Smith contributed to this report.
Tallies on election night are not official until they are certified, which can take up to a week. The following are the final vote totals as certified by the Floyd County Elections Board on Nov. 6:
Rome City Commission
Jamie Doss, 1,917
Duane Reid, 1,566
Sue Hamler Lee, 1,466
Jeff Brown, 1,210
Steven McDowell, 1,080
Harold Pledger, 625
Rome Board of Education
Judy Sims, 2,208
Cheryl Huffman, 2,097
Dale Swann, 2,067
Will Wood, 2024
Chris Wilson, 1,899
Bruce Jones, 1,850
Faith Collins, 1,778
Jim Greer, 1,604
SPLOST referendum
Yes, 3,774
No, 3,595
Floyd County Emergency Management Agency Director Scotty Hancock was among the officials who spent the evening at the County Ad-
ministration Building, nervously awaiting each precinct count. The final result: 3,753 to 3,584.
“We made it,” Hancock said with a sigh of relief. “Seventy-three percent of this SPLOST was for public safety, and I think the public will see us better able to perform our duties — like we should have years ago.”
The vote also spelled victory for backers of an industrial park at the corner of Ga. 140 and Ga. 53; a Barron Stadium makeover with artificial turf; a new fire department headquarters and emergency operations center; and an expansion of the cramped offices of the 15-county Northwest Georgia Regional Commission, formerly the Coosa Valley Regional Development Center.
Cave Spring also won a $350,000 offset for its $8.3 million water system upgrade.
Turnout was 16.67 percent countywide — but it was the voters in the cities of Rome and Cave Spring who put the 1-cent sales tax over the top. Cave Spring voted 191 to 143 in favor of the SPLOST, and the ballot question passed in all six Rome precincts.
The measure failed in 16 of 18 precincts in the unincorporated area. Only Alto Park, 239 to 200, and Riverside, 43 to 35, had majority support for the penny tax.
Rome Mayor Wright Bagby Jr. was celebrating the vote but said he’s disappointed the city again ended up carrying the vote.
“If we hadn’t had SPLOST for the last 23 years we’d be a different place, or have a huge bonded debt,” he said. “There would be a change in thinking if people started looking at everything we wouldn’t have without a SPLOST.”
Residents in the unincorporated area voted against six of the 12 previous packages, although Rome votes pushed 10 of them over the 50-percent mark.
Tuesday’s win means Floyd County’s sales tax will remain at seven cents on the dollar, without a break, when the 2006 SPLOST collection expires June 30, 2010. The 2009 SPLOST collection will run three years, to June 30, 2013.
The ballot question also included permission to issue up to $20 million in SPLOST-backed bonds to jump-start the projects before revenue starts rolling in.
None of the precincts favoring the tax topped Cave Spring’s 57.19 percent margin of support, and informal polling showed the recession was a concern throughout the county. But the same fears didn’t always produce the same result.
Danny Abrams in the Glenwood precinct said the cost of the package was just too much.
“I feel like the intent is good with the SPLOST, but so many things have been piled onto it that it ends up hurting people with the way the economy is now,” he said.
But East Rome voter Ben Farrer said the penny sales tax lightens the burden on residents by tapping visitors as well.
“I just think that it’s a good way to fund some things to help our community,” Farrer said.
Staff Writer John Bailey and Staff Photographer Ryan Smith contributed to this report.
Tallies on election night are not official until they are certified, which can take up to a week. The following are the final vote totals as certified by the Floyd County Elections Board on Nov. 6:
Rome City Commission
Jamie Doss, 1,917
Duane Reid, 1,566
Sue Hamler Lee, 1,466
Jeff Brown, 1,210
Steven McDowell, 1,080
Harold Pledger, 625
Rome Board of Education
Judy Sims, 2,208
Cheryl Huffman, 2,097
Dale Swann, 2,067
Will Wood, 2024
Chris Wilson, 1,899
Bruce Jones, 1,850
Faith Collins, 1,778
Jim Greer, 1,604
SPLOST referendum
Yes, 3,774
No, 3,595
is one of the fact's of life in this city.under 10,000 voter's decided on a tax for the city and county because of dirty politic's by those in
power. i just hope and pray the all important
communacation's, which i agree will cost more to keep up. after the s.p.l.o.t. failed a few year's ago, city leader's got togeather and made sure it would never happen again, only call for a s.p.l.o.t. when there is not a general election, to keep the voter turn out very low and only in the city.
Get real you lazy people. Surely you can find a day to vote during the month before the election.
Sounds like "regular" people should quit being lazy and vote if they want different results. Maybe "regular" people shouldn't slack around waiting to "catch a break."
I agree, it would be better to have a line-item vote, but I think those benefits are worth a penny per dollar increase in sales tax in this county.
limits ignore the tax increase. Did anyone not expect this to pass when there was nothing on the ballot to appeal to county voters. The city Godfathers pulled another fast-one.What do you think the results would have been if this was on the Nov 2010 ballot? County taxpayers are fed up with these porkplates.Schools and roads are legitimate projects,not things that are beneficial to a select few.
Yes, it certainly is a day to celebrate the passage of all these "great" projects.Reminds me of Chicago mafia politics.
There were some good things in the splost, but there were things piled on the bottom that did not need to be in there. Now is not the time to be purchasing land for industrial parks when there is already so much out there. A Industrial park next to my farm is not a priority at this time when our homeless shelters are overflowing, and children are living in filth due to understaffed county workers to protect them. Our roads are fill with trash, because we can't afford to pay, yes pay to have prisoners pick it up.
We are suppose to be trimming the fat not adding to it. You are giving the people nothing back in return. You just keep taking away. I can't even get the county to give me a pipe to go under my driveway that is collasping due to your drainage ditch flowing through my property. I think we should trim the fat off your saleries untill its election time. For I vote for all NEW commissioners.