Despite their tremendous research and work, Charles Taylor and Mike Stone could not deliver on their campaign promise to repeal the business tax even with Joe Martin's continued support. Not yet, anyway.
The last municipal election was nothing more than a referendum on the business tax. One at-large candidate, Mike Stone, racked up a stunning 60% of the vote running on that theme despite a relentless, expensive campaign against him.
But council members Mike Brewer, J.D. Williams, Walter McNeil, and Lynwood Mann ignored the election sentiment and voted to stick with their votes. Nowhere was this a true as in the case of Lynwood Mann who got a minority of votes in his district and won by only 6 votes. If someone else had gotten those six votes, the repeal may have had a fighting chance.
There are a couple of lessons here. The obvious one is the importance of voting. Sometimes our votes do make a difference. The second is that if you want to change the direction of an elected body, new members are needed. If incumbents win, even by a minority vote, they don't get the message.
The problems with the administration and fairness of the business tax as laid out by Councilman Taylor could not be answered or addressed by anyone else--including the city manager who seemed clueless to the administration of the business tax. The only retort was this tax might someday result in less property taxes--an appeal soon to be heard again for the sales tax. The tax opponents had the support of a professional grassroots campaign staff from Americans for Prosperity and they had the support of the public who came to express opposition, but in the end they lost--by six votes. Six votes by six anonymous people who chose not to vote last November.
The business tax is an octopus that has tentacles that will grow like kudzu. It will be an issue in the next municipal election and then there will be a chance to repeal it.
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