Although it was less than 10,000 of the Richmond County, Ga. voters that took the time to go and vote, there was mandate of 70% of them that said ‘yes’ to SPLOST VI. This issue was one of the first that I was publicly vocal because it impacts so many people. Local, state and federal government are not the perfect models. Especially in this day and time. But it’s what we’ve got. And for a local municipality to have a revenue stream to fund infrastructure, roads, capital projects and quality of life projects without having to put the total burden on property owners, SPLOST VI is the way to go. My prediction was 68% yes and 32% no. Seems I was pretty close and I’m pleased about that. Vocal supporters had a victory party at one of the local night spots and the media took notice. Check out the front page photo of today’s Augusta Chronicle. http://www.augustachronicle.com. By the way, I’m the one in the middle holding my Blackberry that showed the election results.
http://chronicle.augusta.com/stories/2009/06/17/met_527947.shtml
While I personally disagree with most SPLOST measures, there is a couple of things that make it more tolerable for me. One is that SPLOST is taxpayer voted. The people decide, and they decide based on what it’ll be used for. Any time people get to decide if they get taxed or not based on what the funds are for, that’s a good thing.
The second is that it can be worked around if an individual doesn’t want to pay it, making it somewhat voluntary. That’s definitely a good thing 😉