This series I am writing as part of The Times’ participation in the town’s 30/50 celebration is fun for me to write, and I hope informative for you.
Before I left the last time to head back to our home in Las Vegas, I went into our morgue (that’s the term used for the room where we keep all of our back issues.). I collected about 10 issues from the 1995 file box looking for stories that were big enough to be of interest in this series.
As it turned out, it was a particularly newsworthy set of papers I pulled. Each trip, I will collect another set of papers to bring back to Vegas where I work on my columns.
This week I am writing about the town’s journey down the road to having a sales tax.
The Jan. 11 edition of The Times carried a front-page headline “Town told to proceed with sales tax plan.” It said, “With just one dissenting vote from Mayor John Cutillo, the Council instructed Town Manager Paul Nordin and Attorney Bill Farrell to bring back a sales tax code and resolution to implement it.
“Nordin presented his final report to the council Jan. 5, outlining the primary areas council indicated it may wish to fund with the revenue.
“Those items are street maintenance, police protection, parks development and a civic center/Town Hall.
“Nordin recommended no funding at this time for an aquatic center or town property tax reduction.
“Cutillo said he could not support the sales tax because he is not convinced the people are willing to accept it.”
There was very little resistance to the sales tax by members of the audience that night. In fact, only one resident spoke against the sales tax as a funding mechanism.
The next week’s edition carried a main headline of “No citizen survey on sales tax.” The sub-head read, “Council ready to pass 1.5 percent tax next week.”
As it turned out, Cutillo made a motion for the survey, however, it didn’t receive a second. Thus, the council did not discuss it.
In the Feb. 8 edition, it was announced with a headline of “Council adopts 1.2 percent sales tax.”
Amendments to exempt food and commercial rentals failed, but when the Town council voted to approve a sales tax at its Feb. 2 meeting, it adopted a 1.2 percent rate instead of the 1.5 percent tax proposed by staff.
The council set the effective date for the sales tax as on or after April 30, 1995.
The decision on the sales tax culminated six months of work by the town’s administrative staff and three months of discussion by the council.
Councilman Bill O’Brien offered a final amendment to simply exempt food with no rate stipulation. After a lengthy discussion, that amendment failed, however, and all food was subject to the sales tax.
Homebuilder Jack Bercel told the council that the construction industry would be bearing the brunt of the tax and it should include as much as possible to mitigate that effect.
Councilwoman Marianne Wiggishoff said, “Home construction will be the largest sales tax producer for the town as it is.”
She feared without food, the town would be too dependent on the cyclical construction industry for revenue.
The council vote was 6-1 for adopting the original sales tax.
The council approved a .4 percent increase in August 2000.
The sales tax remained stable at 1.6 percent until 2003 when the council approved a full one percent increase in the sales tax rate to 2.6 percent.
The most recent increase in the sales tax was adopted in August 2019.
That .3 percent increase went into effect last Nov. 1 bringing the total Fountain Hills sales tax rate to the current 2.9 percent. The overall sales tax rate for our town including state and county sales taxes is 9.2 percent.
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You might know, the San Francisco Giants’ spring training complex in Scottsdale got a $50 million renovation during the past year. I gave up my seats in Section 210 (I’ve had them for 25 years.) since I have made Las Vegas my primary residence. Oh well, I’ve got tickets for the Cleveland Indians and Oakland A’s game that is being played in Las Vegas Ball Park on Sunday, March 1.
