If nothing else, Orange County commissioners are persistent. If they decide to put the sales-tax increase on the ballot, as The News & Observer reports here, it will be their third try.
Commissioners put tax increases on the ballot in May 2008 and November 2010. Both failed.
This is the pattern in many counties. County commissioners don’t seem to understand the word "NO." Harnett and Hertford counties hold the record. Since 2007, when the legislature approved the tax increase option, these two counties have placed tax increase votes on the ballot four times. Voters in Harnett County defeated all four tax increase requests. Hertford finally got voter approval for a sales-tax increase on the fourth try after calling a stealth election on March 2, 2010, a date guaranteed to suppress voter turnout. Because it was a stealth election, only 8.45 percent of the registered voters turned out for this single-issue election, hardly a model of democracy in action.
After the successful stealth election in Alexander County on January 8, 2008, seven other counties have tried this trick, with a box score of five successes to two defeats. (Halifax, Robeson, Wilkes, Hertford, and Randolph passed; Watauga and Davie were defeated.)
The highest voter turnout was just 10.4 percent of the registered voters, while the lowest was 3.38 percent. County commissioners and the NC Association of County Commissioners should be embarrassed by this political trick.
It is time for the legislature to consider new rule: County tax increase requests should be held only on the November general election ballot in even years.
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