Sales tax issue soundly defeated

Voters in Cameron rejected by a wide margin a one-half cent sales tax proposal for purposes of economic development in Tuesday’s election.

In unofficial totals, the vote was 856 (69 percent) against and 377 (31 percent) in favor of the tax.

In Clinton County, the vote was 690 to 286 against the sales tax. In DeKalb County, the measure was defeated, 166-91.

Revenue from the sales tax would have been used for economic development purposes, including rebuilding the existing swimming pool, construction of a new ball field complex, and acquiring and developing land for economic development prospects.

It was the second time voters turned down the proposal. The issue was defeated by 13 votes in August 2014.

Kent Osborn, President of Economic Development of Cameron, said he was frustrated in the outcome.

“I was pretty disappointed and I hate to see it go out the way it did.”

Cameron Mayor Dennis Clark made the following statement regarding the vote.

“It’s a democratic process and the council presented a plan and the citizens have voiced their opinion.”

Bill Gimson, Cameron Park Board president, said the board would continue to try to make the most of its funds in the best way possible.

“It’s disappointing from a park perspective. There are two things that this community needs to give some major attention to, the pool and the ball fields. So we’ll just have to find another way. As a park board we’ll continue to try to find ways to utilize the money that we have available and try to make the best of the situation.”

Quinten Lovejoy, who was involved with the group of residents that opposed the tax proposal, said it was a matter of how to pay for improvements to the swimming pool and ball fields and to attract business to the community.

“Like we said from the beginning, we like the vision that a lot of our city leaders have, we just have a different road map how to get there. We want to be a major part of growing Cameron, leading it forward. We just have a few different ways that we think could work better.”

Lovejoy said the margin by which the issue was defeated reflected the opinions of the residents he spoke to.

“We found a broad cross section of reasons people were going to come out and actively voice their opinion against this.”

He said his group wants to present their ideas for development in Cameron to the city council at future meetings.

According to state statute, the issue cannot be brought before the voters again for one year.