Tuesday, June 28, 2005
Jim Lynch Proposes Countywide Tax
Jim Lynch makes way too much sense. At the very moment North Little RockÂs mayor is speeding like a runaway train to get a new citywide tax on the ballot, along comes the rational professorial Lynch to break the spell.
That is exactly what happened on my WAI Radio show today. You can hear the entire hour in the archive section of wairadio.com, which is linked on the left column.
The other Lynch (no relation) used his memory and mind to take us back to 1995 when Pulaski County passed a one-cent sales tax for one year to pay for construction of the Alltel arena. He says that things are much the same today except that the same levy would raise about $10 million a year more - $65 million.
Jim Lynch thinks that this current competition is part of an old pattern of negative behavior. I reminded him, and Jim agreed, that locating Alltel on the north shore made it politically and culturally OK for people in Sherwood and Jacksonville to vote Âfor the tax.
Supposedly, Pulaski County Judge Buddy Villines is against the idea because the county jail is in such a mess, but Lynch counters that part of the new sales tax should be permanently earmarked for jail operation and the present annual assessment on cities would be abolished. For Little Rock and North Little Rock this would be a $1.5 million annual gift.
There are public opinion polls that show Little Rock residents would resist giving up the Travs, but that is probably because there has been almost zero public discussion of the alternatives.
Anyway, the balloon has been launched.
That is exactly what happened on my WAI Radio show today. You can hear the entire hour in the archive section of wairadio.com, which is linked on the left column.
The other Lynch (no relation) used his memory and mind to take us back to 1995 when Pulaski County passed a one-cent sales tax for one year to pay for construction of the Alltel arena. He says that things are much the same today except that the same levy would raise about $10 million a year more - $65 million.
Jim Lynch thinks that this current competition is part of an old pattern of negative behavior. I reminded him, and Jim agreed, that locating Alltel on the north shore made it politically and culturally OK for people in Sherwood and Jacksonville to vote Âfor the tax.
Supposedly, Pulaski County Judge Buddy Villines is against the idea because the county jail is in such a mess, but Lynch counters that part of the new sales tax should be permanently earmarked for jail operation and the present annual assessment on cities would be abolished. For Little Rock and North Little Rock this would be a $1.5 million annual gift.
There are public opinion polls that show Little Rock residents would resist giving up the Travs, but that is probably because there has been almost zero public discussion of the alternatives.
Anyway, the balloon has been launched.
