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Land sale, sales tax right course on IRS issue
To the editor:
By now, all of you have heard all the controversy about the IRS Tax issue and, of course, Thunder Bayou Golf Course. I want to thank everyone who has submitted their opinions to the Courier News and/or the City Council Members. Community involvement is necessary if a reasonable solution to our problems is going to be reached.
Selling the 700 acres of land will generate upwards of $1.4 million, which should be enough to satisfy the IRS, and send a message that we are wanting to resolve our tax problems.
The 1 percent sales tax would be enough to finish paying off that debt, and I think most citizens will agree with me that it's a small price to pay to get that debt behind us, so we can move forward. The main thing we want is to find out what happened to the money and who is responsible. Then bring the guilty parties to be accountable. Also, the mayor and City Council should be furious with the IRS, because it should not have taken over two years to notify the city of its delinquent tax debt. We need answers on that question, which I have not noticed that it has been addressed by anyone of this administration.
Then comes the problem of not having enough money to run the city. I think the hotel/motel tax increase is the best way to generate more income. And the best part about it -- it won't cost the residents of Blytheville a dime ... not one red cent. I know the police, fire and street departments will all tell you, we need the money.
Then comes Thunder Bayou Golf Course. The golf course and the sports complex (baseball and soccer fields) does NOT belong to the city of Blytheville. They don't own it and have no right to sell it or close it down. Fact is, they belong to the citizens of Blytheville. The citizens of Blytheville bought and paid for those facilities with the
1/4-cent sales tax. We built it and now the city wants to take it away. The citizens of Blytheville are also paying for the maintenance of all our amenities. The parks, the baseball and soccer fields, and the golf course. We are paying for the maintenance of OUR AMENITIES with the 1/4-cent sales that we, as citizens, voted on, specifically for that single purpose. This administration can not destroy what we have worked so hard to build. We did all this because we wanted Blytheville to become a better place to live.
I will support this administration and its decisions as long as its justifiable. I support their methods of paying off the debt by selling the farmland and using a 1-cent sales tax. I support the hotel/motel tax to increase the city revenue. I do not support anything that is a negative, like closing Thunder Bayou. I'm not even sure it's legal for them to do it, considering the 1/4-cent was specifically designed for that for that purpose.