By BRENT MARTIN
St. Joseph Post
St. Joseph voters overwhelmingly approve extending the half-cent sales tax for capital improvements for another five years, with more than 82% of the voters casting ballots Tuesday in favor of the issue.
Capital Improvement Program (CIP) Committee chair Steve McCamy is more than bit pleased with the results.
“This is the highest percentage it has ever passed at and the nice thing about that is it just tells me that the citizens of St. Joseph that did vote liked the projects that the committee came up with and they have confidence with the CIP program that we’ll follow through on what we say we’re going to do,” McCamy tells KFEQ/St. Joseph Post.
The Buchanan County Clerk’s office reports 10.2% of the registered voters in the county went to the polls on Tuesday, a total of 5,219 ballots cast.
The half-cent CIP tax won overwhelmingly with 3,588 voting in favor of the tax and only 772 voting against, according to the unofficial tally. That is a percentage split of 82.29% to 17.71%.
McCamy credits the work of his committee for the strong support, reasoning that voters appeared to favor the projects the committee proposed the tax finance. The vote extends the capital improvement tax, which raises about $7 million a year, for another five years.
McCamy says the election results keep momentum moving.
“We’re getting a lot more attention now,” McCamy says. “We’ve got the Chiefs camp here in town. Kansas City’s been here for quite a while now. We’ve got quite so many things to offer here in St. Joe that people can come and see while they’re here. We just need to use this kind of tax to continue to improve our community to make people want to come here, live here, visit here, and shop here.”
The light voter turnout could be blamed on the sparse ballot. St. Joseph voters faced only two issues on Tuesday, the half-cent capital improvement sales tax as well as the Buchanan Count marijuana tax issue. That issue, authorizing the county to impose a 3% tax on the sale of recreational marijuana, also breezed to approval on Tuesday.