Mayor Baker refutes claim he is against 1% prepared food tax

During a July 19 gathering of Fort Smith restaurant owners and managers opposed to the idea of a 1% prepared food tax, Eddie York indicated that Fort Smith Mayor Ray Baker is opposed to the tax.

York, who organized the first meeting, told the more than 25 in attendance that Baker has indicated he opposes the tax but must remain publicly neutral for political reasons.

The Fort Smith board of directors have indicated a tentative plan to ask Fort Smith voters in spring 2011 to support a 1% prepared food tax to fund a shortfall of between $750,000 and $1 million to operate the Fort Smith Convention Center. The board spent more than 18 months trying to come up with a solution to plug the annual deficit. A state turnback program ends in June 2010 from which the city has received about $1.8 million a year. In 2010 the city will receive only $888,723 in 2010.

An ad hoc convention center committee formed by the board of directors first met April 22 and reviewed several options, including a 1% hospitality tax, finding cuts in the city’s roughly $40 million operating budget, reallocating a portion of the city’s 1% street tax, re-instituting a business license fee and finding a 3rd party operator.

“I haven’t made any statement for or against it,” Baker told The City Wire when asked of his position on a 1% prepared food tax. “Yes, I was opposed to it in years past, but you know, this is a different situation.”

Baker said he is reconsidering his position because “our convention center brings in so many people to this area that we can’t just do nothing.”

When told of Baker’s reconsideration, York said he still “feels that he (Baker) doesn’t like” the tax.

“What I think he thinks is that the (convention center) funds were there and they (city board) used them for other things, and he doesn’t like that,” York said.

When interviewed Wednesday (July 28) while catering an event at the Fort Smith Convention Center, York predicted that 90% of Fort Smith restaurant owners oppose the tax. He bristled when asked about his objection to the tax while also directly benefitting from the convention center.

“Look, the whole deal about this is about more taxation. … The people don’t give a flip about what they (convention center proponents) say if it is about more taxation,” York said.