S369 Will Hurt Watauga, Help Boone

Soucek & Jordan. Photo Watauga
Democrat

Last post down-column was about a sales tax redistribution scheme arising now out of the NC Senate which would pick winners and losers among North Carolina towns and counties.

Guess what? Watauga County will be one of eight counties in the state that will lose money. Guess what else? The law as written will also take away one of the play-toys that Nathan Miller loved so much -- the ability of a county commission to distribute sales tax receipts on the basis of property values rather than population. If you recall, Mr. Miller as Chair of the Watauga County Commission decided to punish Boone by changing the distribution to ad valorem (property values). Under this law, the system should revert to population, which will benefit Boone.

Wonder how Sen. Dan Soucek and Rep. Jonathan Jordan will vote on S369. Soucek does not buck the big boys in the Senate, so we expect he'll vote against the economic interests of his own county (and inadvertently for the economic interests of its largest town, which he has otherwise been happy to torture). And Jordan? This legislative scheme is still a ways from raising its head in the House, but Jordan is also not a step-out-of-line sort of guy.