Municipal League, county agree to delay emergency radio vote
Directors of the St. Louis County Municipal League and a top county official today agreed to delay until Aug. 4 a vote on an 0.1-cent sales tax to build and initially operate a county emergency communications system.
The sales tax would raise about $15 million a year and finance an $80 million radio system that would allow police, fire and other emergency service workers at an emergency scene to talk to each other via radio.
The directors and Garry Earls, the county’s chief operating officer, discussed the matter at the league board’s monthly meeting. Tim Fischesser, executive director of the league, said “we did not think April or June would give us enough time to have a good campaign in place.”
Local elections will be April 7. State law allows special elections on June 2, Aug. 4 and Nov. 3.
The officials do not want to wait until November for a vote because public safety agencies face a federal requirement to modify their equipment by 2012 and the jurisdictions need time to make the changes, Fischesser said. The Federal Communications Commission mainly has ordered public safety agencies to narrow the radio frequencies they use.
Also the league officials were concerned that lawmakers may have to make a technical change in the law authorizing the sales tax. Holding the vote in August would give the Legislature time to act, he said.
The league may ask lawmakers to specify who would collect the tax, he said. League directors are concerned that without the law authorizing the tax directing the state to obtain its revenue, the state Revenue Department, which collects almost all sales taxes, would not do so.
Voters in November rejected a 1.85-cent sales tax on out-of-state purchases; part that tax’s revenue would have paid for the communications system.
The county has included the communications system in the 95 items in its nearly $1.8 billion proposal for federal economic stimulus money. President-elect Barak Obama outlined his economic stimulus proposal this morning. Whether the emergency communications system would fit in the program is unclear.
How about they just use some of the money that they are probably wasting in their budget for this. Seems kinda silly to keep raising taxes, especially in these tough times. What is this League anyway? How about disbanding that likely worthless organization, sell its assets and use that to build the system?
1.8 billion for “economic stimulus”? What a load of carp!!! If Obama is allowed to take the oath of office (Kenya), he needs to really try to listen to himself. Nothing is going to help the economy less than the government.