Haymarket OKs 4 Percent Meals Tax

Haymarket OKs 4 percent meals tax
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Haymarket OKs 4 percent meals tax
By: Dan Roem
Gainesville Times
05/09/2007

After a contentious debate at Town Hall Monday night that involved flailing arms, finger-pointing and a speech made by one council member as he paced around the room, the Haymarket Town Council voted in favor of adding a meals tax to next year's town budget.

The 4-2 vote to authorize a 4-percent meals tax was enough for the motion to pass; the town charter requires a two-thirds majority for tax hikes to be enacted.

A public hearing will be held Thursday, May 17 at 7 p.m. for residents to speak about the meals tax, as well as the fiscal year 2008 budget.

If the FY2008 budget ultimately passes, the meals tax would be enacted on July 1 of this year. The tax would have to be reauthorized annually, meaning that it has a built-in one-year "sunset clause."

"We have a balanced budget," town manager Gene Swearingen told the council after it returned from a closed session that lasted a little more than 90 minutes. "I'm not real happy with it because I don't think it'll be realistic for next year."

Swearingen's original budget proposal did not include a meals tax, though an alternate budget did.

According to a statement to the mayor and council written by Swearingen on May 2, "A meals tax in Haymarket would generate approximately $60,000 for each penny of the tax. This estimate is base(d) on actual receipts and estimates obtained from restaurants and other food vendors in Haymarket."

Staking the tax at 4 percent, which the town manager said is typical for similar taxes in Virginia towns, would thus generate about $240,000 in new revenue for Haymarket.

According to vice mayor John Cole, most of the money would go toward capital improvements, such as the streetscape project along Washington Street that the council members promised to finish during their current term. To offset costs to business owners, $6,000 will be set aside for periodic advertising paid for by the town for the impacted restaurants.

Cole, Tasha Sikorsky, Ozzie Vazquez and Sue Shuryn voted in favor of the tax. Bob Weir and Sheila Jarboe voted against.

"What's going to attract businesses here," Vazquez said during the debate, "is a town people want to come to."

Vazquez said he had gone door-to-door throughout Haymarket prior to the vote to get a sense of the town residents' thoughts about increased taxes to pay for the streetscape project.

He, Vazquez and Shuryn all agreed the project would make Haymarket more like Old Town Manassas in that people can easily walk across town, stopping at stores along the way.

Among the 50 people Vazquez said he surveyed, "100 percent" of them favored either implementing a meals tax or ......

Haymarket OKs 4 percent meals tax
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