Tuesday night is the last of the 3 informational town hall meetings being hosted by Chadron City Manager Wayne Anderson on the city’s LB-840 election next Tuesday. It begins at 7:00 in city hall and can be watched on Great Plains Cable Channel 19.

 

 

Voters will decide a 15-year half-cent economic development sales tax that would essentially replace a similar tax expiring next year, and will also decide on a development plan for using the revenue. Both must pass for the tax to take effect.

The first of Anderson’s meetings…set for what turned out to be the last day of the month’s first snowstorms…drew no one from the public, but about 15 people made it to the second last Wednesday.

Anderson says there were a lot of misconceptions early on about the LB-840 tax and the projects it would fund, but he thinks he’s been making headway in getting out accurate information. He hopes others are taking that information and passing it along.

80% of the revenue would go for city infrastructure projects, 13% for community development, and 7% for community betterment projects.

The bulk of the infrastructure funding would be for a planned multi-million dollar upgrade and expansion of the city storm sewer system, but fund are also expected to be available over the 15-year life of the tax for streets and other projects.

This would be the fourth half-cent sales tax approved by Chadron voters in the past quarter-century. The first two, which were not part of the LB-840 program, funded the current swimming pool and the fire department’s aerial truck.

The current half-cent LB-840 tax was passed primarily to help fund the new Chadron Community hospital. 90% of it was for economic development, with 75% of that share going for the hospital. The remaining funds have gone to community betterment projects.