The City of Carroll received the approval of the Carroll County Board of Supervisors Monday on the removal of a December 2023 sunset of the city’s Local Option Sales Tax (L.O.S.T.). This was one of the first steps for them in moving forward with a proposal to use a portion of the L.O.S.T. revenues to fund more than $7.6 million of the nearly $13.4 million estimated costs of renovating the Carroll Rec Center. The city needed to partner with another taxing entity for a combined representation of more than 50 percent of county residents, even though only residents within the city of Carroll will be able to vote on a referendum. With this approval, the council then brought the discussion back at their Monday night meeting and debated the merits of a Sept. 8, 2020 bond referendum that would pair the L.O.S.T. dollars with $5.9 million in general obligation (GO) bonds. One of the many reasons presented by some council members for scheduling the referendum, despite the unknown economic impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic, is the ever-increasing construction costs. City Manager, Mike Pogge-Weaver, did point out one current advantage that has arisen from the pandemic. Your browser doesn’t support HTML5 audio Your browser doesn’t support HTML5 audio Your browser doesn’t support HTML5 audio Your browser doesn’t support HTML5 audio
Councilman, LaVern Dirkx, says he is not comfortable with the timing on a vote for issuing GO bonds at this time; and he is not alone.
Mike Kots says he is all for putting this out and letting the people have their say. However, he agrees with Dirkx on splitting the two funding votes.
Other council members, including Carolyn Siemann and Clay Haley, believe that this is a long-term project with the added benefit of no negative impact on the tax levy rate. They both want to see the momentum start now, particularly in light of the fact this project has been in the works since before 2007, according to Siemann.
Kots pointed out that sometimes waiting isn’t always a bad thing, especially in looking at those 2007 plans. Based on those, he says, they would still be doing something now because those don’t meet their current needs. Three motions were made on three separate resolutions. Two passed on a vote of four in favor and two, Dirkx and Kots, against and were the call for a special election on the GO bonds and fixing a date for a meeting on the proposition to issue the bonds. The other, that for a special election on L.O.S.T., passed on a unanimous vote.