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According to the Columbia Daily Tribune, some businesses in Columbia, Missouri, wanted to create a Community Improvement District (CID) and pay for improvements by a sales tax increase within the CID's borders.
The Columbia City Council established the district on a 5-2 vote in April in response to a petition from a group of property owners in the CID boundaries. The “qualified voters” in a CID are capable of levying various taxes or assessments within the boundaries of the district to fund improvement projects. Under state law, decisions to impose sales taxes in a CID are to be made by registered voters living in the district boundaries. If no such registered voters are present, property owners vote.
The property owners drew the district to exclude registered voters so they could impose a sales tax and avoid additional property taxes. In their efforts, they overlooked a single graduate student who lives in the district, Jen Henderson. Now, she alone gets to decide the fate of the sales tax increase.
The CID Executive Director Carrie Gartner, who says the district is not viable without the sales tax increase, has approached Henderson.
[More after the break.]
Henderson said she doesn’t want her involvement with the CID to be private. She said Gartner initially approached her in June to explain the goals of the CID and ask her to consider “unregistering her vote” so the property owners could make the decision. The more she researched the situation, Henderson said, things “just didn’t seem to be as good as they were saying to me at first.”
Gartner “tried to get me to unregister, and that’s pretty manipulative,” Henderson said. “The district plan and the district border is manipulative, too.”
Henderson says she doesn't know how she will vote, but she has concerns about
...vague project outlines, Gartner’s pay [$70,000/year], Business Loop improvements she said will help businesses but not nearby residents and how an additional sales tax would affect low-income people purchasing groceries and other necessities
Gartner says the CID is already in debt for about $215,000. If the vote isn't held, or goes against the CID, the property owners will have to rely on the property taxes they had hoped to avoid.
Original Submission
(Score: 2) by wonkey_monkey on Saturday August 29 2015, @05:54PM
[More after the break.]
What?
There's no break, except the one that now exists solely to tell readers that there is more after it. Which is redundant, because I can see the words right there with my eyes.
So why write that?
[This line intentionally devoid of all meaning and purpose]
systemd is Roko's Basilisk
(Score: 2, Interesting) by redneckmother on Saturday August 29 2015, @05:58PM
Reminds me of the IBM manuals - "This page left intentionally blank" - which, of course, made the page "non blank".
Mas cerveza por favor.
(Score: 2) by AnonymousCowardNoMore on Saturday August 29 2015, @06:04PM
Right. You wanted them to leave it blank, so you could wonder if it's a misprint.
(Score: 2, Informative) by redneckmother on Saturday August 29 2015, @07:50PM
No, it just made for some hilarity for the users. We understood the reasoning behind the sentence, but disagreed on the contents of the text.
Mas cerveza por favor.
(Score: 2) by Nerdfest on Saturday August 29 2015, @06:32PM
On the main page, the txt stops at the "more after the break". Yes, ideally that would be removed from the click-through story.
(Score: 2) by sjames on Sunday August 30 2015, @02:02AM
There certainly was a break when I looked at it. [more after the break] appeared at the very bottom of the summary on the front page. Sure enough, when I viewed the story, there was (drumroll please) MORE!
Perhaps your browser may vary.
(Score: 2) by wonkey_monkey on Sunday August 30 2015, @09:50AM
Ah! I come in via RSS and never go to the front page.
systemd is Roko's Basilisk