1% petitioners plan to submit 4,000-plus signatures

A source close to the 1% petition effort says around 4,000 signatures will be resubmitted in the effort to force an election on a 1% prepared food tax in Fort Smith.

The Citizens for Responsible Taxation have until 5 p.m., Friday (July 8) to submit the petitions. The effort needs 2,822 valid signatures to force a vote.

“We’ll have more than 4,000 (signatures). And we’ll be there (Fort Smith City Clerk’s office) at 3:30 tomorrow to turn them in,” the source said.

TAX HISTORY
A 1% prepared food tax was enacted Feb. 24 by the Fort Smith Board of Directors to resolve the more than 10-year search to plug an annual deficit with convention center operations predicted to occur when $1.8 million in annual state turnback money dried up. The state turnback program — which supported expansion or construction of tourism facilities — ended for Fort Smith in June 2010.

The Citizens for Responsible Taxation submitted signatures in late March to call for a public election on the 1% tax.

On April 25, Gard found the petition insufficient. Gard’s investigation, including interviews and testimony from several persons who gathered petitions, found that “at least” 1,409 of the 3,363 signatures verified as legal voters “cannot be accepted as verified inasmuch as those affiants have confirmed that there were signatures that they did not personally witness.”

Sebastian County Circuit Court Judge Michael Fitzhugh on May 27 granted an injunction stopping collection of the 1% prepared food tax. The Citizens for Responsible Taxation on May 24 filed the lawsuit asking to stop collection of the tax until a trial could be held in the attempt to force an election on implementation of the tax.

Fitzhugh issued an order June 28 that forces Fort Smith City Clerk Sherri Gard to give the Citizens for Responsible Taxation 10 days to correct deficiencies “related to the insufficient number of verified signatures.”