The City Wire Endorsement: Fort Smith voters asked to support June 9 sales tax vote

THE POINT: The City Wire supports passage of a Fort Smith sales tax extension vote to raise $30 million to help fix significant water and sewer system problems.

THE REASON: The sales tax extension is the least onerous of the options available to fix the more than $75 million in system problems required by federal mandates to be addressed. It extends the 1% sales tax for wastewater improvements 18-24 months, meaning this is NOT adding a new tax to the books.

THE ACTION: Sales tax vote held June 9 (Tuesday); early voting continues today (June 5) and Monday (June 8).

At The City Wire, we hate taxes. Haaaaate them. When we aren’t hating them, we are despising them. Especially federal and state taxes. Taxes can suck the life from an economy — each dollar pulled from the private sector is a dollar not used to directly promote commerce, and is a dollar swallowed up in the ever-expanding Rube Goldberg-esque machinery of federal and state governments. (Please, no lectures from the Keynesians about the fabulous wonders of dumping boatloads of government dollars into the economy.)

Sure, we are aware of and agree with the sentiment expressed by the great U.S. Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. who said taxes are the price we pay for living in a civilized society. But we know regular dentist visits are the price we pay for good teeth, but it doesn’t make us not hate going to the dentist.

Anyway, part of a civilized society requires adequate control of municipal sewage. Unfortunately, the city of Fort Smith literally doesn’t have its You-Know-What together when it comes to properly handling sewage. To mitigate that problem and get federal agencies off our collective backs, the city of Fort Smith has spent more than $100 million to fix the problems of raw sewage pouring into creeks, ditches and buildings, and needs to spend at least another $75 million to comply with federal mandates. (Link here for a more detailed report on the issue and the tax.)

It is at the local level where we often draw the line on our hatred of taxes. For Fort Smith voters it is easy to see the results of their taxes. Street improvements, downtown developments, Lake Fort Smith expansion, University of Arkansas at Fort Smith, etc., are all direct and positive results of a local tax that directly improves regional living conditions. And judging by the historic overwhelming support for local taxes, citizens of Fort Smith agree that local taxes are good investments.

We’ve said all that to say this: The sales tax extension is something we’d rather avoid, but it’s a FAR better alternative than A) significantly higher water and sewer rates, and/or B) having the federal government step in and tell us how to manage our water and sewer system.

Please vote June 9 (or in the early voting process) FOR the extension of the sales tax extension.