Whoa. Whoa. WHOA. Hang on there, sparky.
This car rental tax hike for the $158 million Uptown art complex is spinning out of control. Now all of a sudden we a have a proposal for a 5 percent hike in the car rental tax which would go to fund mass transit. Then money from the city’s general fund which now goes to pay for CATS would go to pay for arts. Got that?
Couple observations. First, quite the admission that CATS actually is a drain on the general fund. We are used to hearing that the half-cent sales tax hike voters approved in 1998 for transit has built this wonderful system out of thin air and $50 million a year. Not so.
Another: Just as it appears that CATS’ first dedicated revenue source will be insufficient to pay for its $6 billion+ rail system wish list, up pops another dedicated revenue stream scheme. And in a city of bankers no less. Think hundreds of millions in bonds secured by that new revenue might be on somebody’s mind? Nah.
Then, then on to the general fund revenue for the arts complex wrinkle. So it is not enough that $60 million in future property tax revenues from the Wachovia office building are being sucked off from the general fund. The arts projects are to be directly subsidized from the general fund. Told you that you were lied to about that property tax hike. It was not for police and roads. It was for an Uptown arts complex.
How classic Charlotte.
