Grants tax vote
Less than 3% vote down road improvements

Ralph McQuary fills out a ballet at city hall in Grants on Tuesday. The vote was for a quarter percent of a raise in taxes for improvements to streets and alleyways. [Photo by Brian Leddy/Independent]

By Mike Marino
Cibola County Bureau

GRANTS — Some voters spoke Tuesday and the answer was “no“ to road improvements in Grants.

The initial figures are in, and except for verification of the final canvas which should be completed Friday, it’s all over. Just slightly under 6 percent of the voting citizens of Grants went to the polls to vote on the proposed gross tax receipt increase for the city to decide the fate of improvement for the city’s many roadways that need repair. The measure failed by eight votes.

Prior to the vote last night, locals had received a questionnaire included with their utility bills, asking how they would vote on the tax issue when voting day arrived. Only 548 took the time to fill out the questionnaire and return them to help the city make projections. Of those surveys submitted, 360 said “yes,“ they would vote for the proposed tax increase, while 187 indicated “no.” The city has 5,309 registered and eligible voters, and while many showed up at the polls, 36 took advantage of early absentee ballots to register their decision.

Of the registered voters eligible to cast ballots, only 308 votes were cast both at the polls and absentee ballots. The final vote was 150 for and 158 against. City Manager Bob Horacek commented on the outcome.

“The gross receipt increase would have become effective on January 1, 2008. We would have actually started to receive money on the revenue collected by the business entities by March 15 and more on the 15th of each following month. As we’ve discussed before, we would have been looking at our main arteries for improvement first, by using the revenue generated from the tax and our match moneys. Now that it hasn’t passed, we will continue to try to find other ways to generate revenues elsewhere because street improvements are an important issue in our community,” he said.

The city and the state try to work together as best as they can to help improve the roadways. The city has a good working relationship with DOT with projects located in the city. On major construction such as on First Street, they are working on a project that has been in the works for some time to reconstruct First Street with money that is on the STIP, which is the State Transportation Improvement Plan. In 2000 and 2001 there was $3.5 million dollars available for that project which is the state’s portion and also federal highway money.

One issue facing the city today is that it has to replace water and sewer lines in First Street because the city piping runs within the state’s right of way. Flooding is another problem on First Street, and the city has $300,000 in a community development block grant that they were awarded earlier this year, but it has not been made available yet.