With Durham residents voting overwhelmingly against a prepared-food tax last Tuesday, county officials are finding alternate sources of funding to move ahead with some of their planned projects.
The county will now look to fund some of the cultural and recreation initiatives with property taxes, County Commissioners Chair Ellen Reckhow said.
"We will move forward with some of the projects since they are on our adopted Capital Improvement Plan," she wrote in an e-mail. "Some of the projects are essential maintenance of existing facilities."
The tax referendum proposed levying a 1 percent tax on all prepared meals in Durham to help pay for civic and cultural amenities. Durham residents voted against the proposal 72 percent to 28 percent, according to unofficial results from the Durham County Board of Elections.
Dallas Woodhouse, treasurer of Durham Citizens Against the Food Tax, said the tax would have been detrimental to all Durham residents, students included.
"It is a bad plan taxing people going to Bojangles', going to Hardee's-to tax students who go off campus to buy a coffee in order to build a minor league baseball museum," said Woodhouse, who is also state director for the economic advocacy group Americans for Prosperity.
The Durham County Government Web site states that 80 percent of the tax would have gone to fund civic and cultural projects, such as recreation and trails, with 10 percent going to Durham marketing, 5 percent for community clean-up and 5 percent for workforce training.
Some of the specific projects mentioned on the Web site included a Minor League Baseball Fan Experience and National Museum, an American Tobacco Trail and the Hayti Heritage Center.
The food tax would have had little effect on students who dine infrequently off campus, particularly because it would not have applied to on-campus restaurants that are sales-tax exempt when students pay with a DukeCard. Still, some Dukies were still glad the referendum failed.
"I thought that the reasons they were going to use the tax for-I didn't think it was necessary," said junior Mary Caroline Dyke, who voted against the tax.
Sophomore Katie Patellos also said she was opposed to the referendum because she did not think the projects were worth a tax, whereas sophomore Julia Duzon voted against it simply because that was the choice recommended to her by Democratic party canvassers.
One of the arguments the county originally presented in favor of the tax was that about 40 percent of the funds would come from visitors rather than residents.
Woodhouse said his group-which was a bipartisan coalition, pulling in support from the Durham Committee on the Affairs of Black People and city restaurant owners-opposed the tax because they saw it as regressive.
"Supporters of the tax thought that it was a voluntary tax because people can avoid it by preparing their food at home, but we saw it as a tax on necessities," he said. "Everybody's got to eat."
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