Published: May 11, 2008 12:05 am            

New Waverly voters choose sales tax over library district

Voters in New Waverly chose to create an additional sales and use tax for the city Saturday as opposed to creating a library district.

The vote will approve “the adoption of an additional sales and use tax within the City of New Waverly at the rate of one-half of 1 percent to be used to reduce the property tax rate.”

While a greater number of people actually voted to approve the library district than the number of voters who approved the sales and use tax, the library district lost the race because of more than 400 votes against its creation.

According to the Walker County Voter Registrar’s office, there are 638 registered voters in the City of New Waverly, and 2,921 registered voters in the New Waverly Independent School District.

When voting for either the creation of the additional sales and use tax for the city or the library district, voters were permitted to vote for one proposition and against another, or against both.

Voters could not approve both the creation of the additional sales and use tax for the city and the creation of the library district.

Counting the votes cast on Saturday, 145 votes were cast in favor of the creation of the additional sales and use tax for the city while 55 votes were cast against it.

Just during early voting, 57 votes were cast in favor of the additional sales and use tax for the city where 16 were cast against it.

On election day, 88 votes were cast for the city tax and 39 were cast against it.

Altogether, 72.5 percent of voters who voted for or against the creation of the city tax were in favor of its creation.

In total, the library district took 264 votes in favor of its creation, but 401 people cast their votes against it.

Election day brought 180 additional votes for the library district and 259 against, while early voting brought 84 votes for the district and 142 against.

Only 39.7 percent of voters who voted for or against the creation of the library district were in favor of its establishment.

Had the library district been approved, it would have created “the New Waverly Library District and adoption of a local sales and use tax in the New Waverly Library District at the rate of one-half of 1 percent to provide revenue for the district.”

The approval of the library district would also have created an accompanying board of trustees for the district.

        

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