Citizens voice opinions
about new tax
By Heather Mangold
City
Editor
Concerned Tippecanoe County citizens went before
the county's council Thursday night to voice their opinions about the
possibility of tax increases.
The council will vote March 13 to decide whether
or not to implement tax increases that would benefit the Tippecanoe
County Public Library and the Wildcat Creek Solid Waste District.
If passed, the increase would include a four-cent
tax rate increase, giving roughly $617,000 to the library. A 1.2-cent
tax rate would be implemented, giving approximately $240,000 to the
Wildcat Creek Solid Waste District, if voted on by the council members.
Marilyn Neie, a Tippecanoe County resident, came
to the meeting to support the tax increase for the library.
"As a former Tippecanoe School Corporation librarian,
I know the value of books in children's lives," said Neie. "They are
very important."
Charles Beattie, a Lafayette resident, came to
express his opposition to the tax increase proposal.
He said that his gas, heating and water bills rose
in the past few months and that it would be difficult for people on
fixed incomes to handle any kind of tax increase.
Beattie thought it would be in the county's best
interest for the council to wait on this decision until tax reassessments
took place.
Michal Som, president of Friends of Tippecanoe
County Public Library, said there would always be a human outcry accompanying
tax increases, but the library is on a fixed income as well as dealing
with the same expenses as the people that Beattie represented.
"We cannot let the lowest common denominator determine
what happens," said Som.
Mayor Sonya Margerum came to speak on the behalf
of Wildcat Creek Solid Waste as its president.
She said the organization has been very successful
in eliminating household hazardous wastes and has succeeded in recycling
50 percent of the trash found on streets in West Lafayette.
Margerum said the 1.2-cent increase would allow
the organization to continue to benefit the county.
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