Over the last four weeks, this paper has tried to do its best to bring you as much information as possible about Opelika’s proposed one cent sales tax increase and the projects it would fund.
We’ve presented facts and figures, talked to city and school officials, and even toured improvement sites ourselves, seeking to see if the city truly needed to go through the arduous and apparently controversial process of raising the sales tax in order to fund said projects.
We feel the city is correct in assigning priority to these projects, and we applaud their bravery and steadfastness in backing this sales tax increase.
These projects must be done, and the sales tax increase is the best available means to pay for them.
The costs of not doing them now far exceeds the costs of having to do them later.
The availability of quality education is vital for continued economic growth.
The Opelika City School system admittedly has some problems in this area, we will admit, and all of these problems won’t be fixed with new and renovated facilities. However, adequate classrooms and related facilities are a critical first step.
As we continue to seek high-tech industry for our city, we want the management of those companies to want to live in Opelika as well as work here.
The availability of quality schools is a key factor for families deciding where to live.
What you see when you drive past Opelika High School conceals the problems that exist with the old facility.
As we’ve said before, the outside facade, built around the original set of classrooms, looks great and is great. It will not change, for the most part.
What will change is the falling down, leaking part that you don’t see, unless you make a special effort to do so.
The Frederick Road widening must be completed. It is unfortunate that some of the original federal funding was lost, but it happened and we have to pick up the ball and play on. The city has to come up with the shortfall or we will continue to have a major traffic bottleneck in an economically vital area.
We could lose more business to traffic jams than to tax increases.
The improvements to Hillflo and the northern end of Rocky Brook are just as important, for slightly different reasons.
The undulations in the pavement at the end of Rocky Brook create a sometimes irresistible urge for speed in young drivers, leading to serious accidents.
It needs fixing, and it needs it now. We won’t bother to again list and discus the rest of the city’s top ten projects. They need to be done.
City leaders have addressed this undertaking about as responsibly as it could be addressed.
The original undertaking costed out at roughly $100 million.
With help from the city’s financial advisor (and a reordering of the Celebrate Alabama project) the list of projects has been pared and the projected cost has lessened to an estimated $55 million.
Although some have said that with a slow recovery from the Great Recession, it is not a good time to raise taxes, we have to do it.
Actually, it is never a good time to raise taxes unless the use of the money is for purposes that are justified.
Earlier this week, we were disappointed by the small size of last month’s net jobs created in the national economy.
A major factor in this statistic was state and local government job and budget cuts − job cuts and layoffs contributed directly to lower net jobs, and lower budgets meant less contracts to private businesses dependent on state and local government contracts.
These construction projects will help bring work and income to our area, providing construction jobs to employees that may have soon seen themselves out of work, if they aren’t already.
The City of Opelika’s money will be spent locally and stimulate our local economy in undertakings that are needed for continued progress in our community.
The sales tax increase doesn’t upset our competitive position with other cities around the state.
Dothan, Lanett, Valley, Tuscaloosa and Hueytown just approved one cent increases to a total rate of 10 percent (four percent state, four percent city and two percent county). Alexander City is at 8.5 percent, Montgomery 9.5 and Birmingham and Mobile are at ten percent. Auburn is considering the same amount of increase that we are. The public forum on these matters will be held Tuesday, June 14 at 5:30 p.m. in the City Council chambers at City Hall.
We strongly encourage any and all of you to attend, and let your voice be heard on this issue.
We’ll be there. Will you?
Anybody that doesn't want to improve the OHS building needs to visit it! Maybe they should have the meeting at OHS! I am proud of our city council for doing whatever it takes to get OHS fixed.
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